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LIFE AND CHARACTER 



OLIVER CROMWELL, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



YOUNG MEN'S LITERARY ASSOCIATION 



OF CLEVELAND, 



ON THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 28, 1347, 



is v 

SHERMAN B. CANFIELD, 

PASTOR OF THE SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHJTRCH OF CLEVELAND. 



WITH ADDITIONS AND NOTES BY THE AUTHOR. 



g* 



CLEVELAND: 

STEAM PRESS OF M. C. YOCNGLOVE & CO. 

18 5 0. 





The first thiriy-two pages of this lecture, with the accompanying notes and 
ndicated additions, were printed soon after it was decided to publish it. Then 
an unexpected pressure of other labors together with a temporary failure of health, 
prevented the writer from furnishing any more copy till after an interval of 
several months ; when thirty-two pages more were committed to the press. By 
this time the local and transient interest excited by the discussion of the subject 
in this city, had subsided ; and it had, meanwhile, been made to appear quite 
obvious that the mis-statements and objections which were the immediate 
occasion of the writer's consent to publish the lecture, had been too inconsider- 
ately made, to render their correction or their further exposure a matter of any 
uro-ent importance. Hence the remaining portion of the lecture with the addi- 
tions and notes have been prepared for the press without any special stimulus or 
incitement to the task, the attention of the writer being, in the mean time, 
necessarily directed mainly to other pursuits. Indeed but for the fact that so 
considerable a part of the printing was already done, he would now have deemed 
it unadvisable to proceed with the publication. 

Nevertheless to guard against misapprehension he feels bound to say that the 
additional examination which he has been able to give the subject, has served 
not only to increase his interest in it, but also to confirm him in his views as 
expressed when the lecture was delivered. He sees no cause to retract any 
opinion then uttered, but reason rather, as the notes manifest, to speak even more 
strongly on some of the very points upon which his views were, by a few, called 
in question. This declaration he makes, however, with a deep sense of his 
liability to err and with a full and cordial recognition of the right of others to 
think for themselves and to give utterance to their thoughts. 

S. B. CANFIELD. 

Clevelasd, March 28, 1850. 



A LECTURE 



ON THE 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 

OF 

OLIVER CROMWELL 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

YOUNG MEN'S LITERARY ASSOCIATION 

OF CLEVELAND, 

ON THURSDAY EVENING, JAN. 28, 1847 



BY SHERMAN B. CANFIELD, 

•'ASTOR OF THE SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF CLEVELAND. 



CLEVELAND: 

YOUNGLOVE'S STEAM PRESS. 
1847. 



?*? 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Cleveland. Feb. 10, 1847. 

Rev. S. B. Canfield — Dear Sir : Regarding the views presented by 
you, in your Lecture on the ' Life and Character of Oliver Cromwell,' 
as highly interesting and important, and believing that their promul- 
gation will subserve the cause of truth, we respectfully request a copy 
of the lecture for publication. 

Yours, very truly, 

S. J. ANDREWS, 
R. HITCHCOCK, 
H. V. WILSON, 
J. A. FOOT, 
JAMES M. HOYT, 
H. C. KINGSLEY, 
H. B. PAYNE, 
W. D. BEATTIE. 

Cleveland, Feb. 11, 1847. 

Gentlemen,-— The lecture of which you request a copy for the 
press, was prepared amid pressing engagements and with no expecta- 
tion or thought of its publication. Had I wished to publish my views 
of the life and character of Oliver Cromwell, at all, I should have 
preferred to exhibit them more fully than the limits of a single lecture 
would permit, and with a larger space for the presentation of the facts 
and arguments on which those views are based. The lecture was 
prepared and delivered in the' 1 hope rather of exciting inquiry than of 
gaining the immediate assent to my views of all who might happen 
to hear me. It was not to be expected that all minds would be pre- 
pared at once to admit the correctness of a picture of Cromwell, so 
unlike the horrid caricature — drawn by political and ecclesiastical 
partisans — from which alone not a few Americans as well as English- 
men have received their impressions of that extraordinary man. 
But it seemed proper, in a lecture intended solely for the audience to 
which this was delivered, to ask in behalf of the man who was inti- 
mately associated, in the cause of civil and religious liberty, with 
Hampden ; and who, by his liberal and magnanimous policy, as well 
as by his pre-eminent abilities, won the confidence, the friendship, 
and the admiration of Milton, a rehearing — a re-examination of his 
history in the light of all the facts which have now been made acces- 
sible, and with a proper scrutiny of the statements of prejudiced 
writers. 

Such having been the object for which the lecture was written, it 
is with extreme reluctance that I consent to furnish a copy of it for 
publication. Indeed, I should have felt constrained to decline doing 
so altogether, but for the fact that the sentiments and arguments of 
the lecture have, in some very important points, been so grossly 



4 

mis-stated through the medium of the press, ns to render it due to" 
mvself ns well as to the cause of truth, to present to the public, in some 
form, at least a correction of those mis-statements. For the attainment 
of this latter object, the most direct method seems to be, to let the 
lecture speak for itself. Imperfect as it is, it may perhaps be suffi- 
cient for this end. Certainly, no equivocation, ambiguity, or obscurity 
was intended in its composition. 

Yours, very respectfully, 

S. B. CANFIELD. 

Messrs. S. J. Andrews, R. Hitchcock^ H. V. Wilson, J. A. Foot, J- 
M. Hoyt, H. C. Kingsley, H. B. Payne, and W. D, Beattie. 



LECTURE. 



In undertaking to discourse upon the life and character of Oliver 
Cromwell, I am not conscious of yielding to any sectarian impulse. 
I have never regarded the character of the denomination of Chris- 
tians to which I belong as vitally associated with the fame of Crom- 
well. His memory might shine in the glory of noble principles 
vindicated, and of heroic deeds performed, or turn dark in the infamy 
of righteousness betrayed with a kiss, and of humanity outraged in the 
name of religion, and yet our standing before the world be not on the 
one hand greatly exalted, or on the other materially lowered. Proba- 
bly it has occurred to very few minds, occupied with the question of 
uniting with a Congregational or Presbyterian church, even to enquire 
whether the great Lord Projector of England was a good or a bad 
man — a sincere Christian or a designing hypocrite. And does not a 
similar remark apply to the position of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church in relation to the character of Charles I ? What to her is 
the shining of one star — even if that were a star — when she may 
point to a constellation ? A magnanimous Church will desire to wear 
no false jewels in her crown. A great religious denomination can 
afford to have historical justice rendered to all whose names are, in 
any way, connected with it. 

Entertaining these sentiments and doubting not that others, too, 
cherish them, I intend to utter freely, though, I trust, candidly, my 
thoughts on the subject which has been announced. 

It is unnecessary for me to say to this audience that the opinion 
which I maintain in regard to the character of Cromwell is, on the 
whole, far more favorable than that which writers, not a few, have 
expressed. The circumstances, and still more the manner, in which, 
until quite recently, the mass of English historians have spoken of 
the acts and the principles of 1 he mighty leader of " the great Puritan 
Revolt." ought long since to have excited, at least in all American 
minds, a strong suspicion as to their truthfulness and fairness. Since 
the reins of government fell from the feeble hands of his son Richard, 
there has been no great party, whether of Church or State, inter- 
ested to take his good name into kind and safe keeping. Prelatists 
have anxiously sought to make him appear a hypocrite, and monarch- 
ists have labored to exhibit him in the hatefulness of an ambitious 
usurper and tyrant. Even the Dissenters have, in general, been 



cither loo little acquainted with the real facts of his history or too 
strongly devoted to the reigning dynasty and too anxious to avoid the 
suspicion of disloyalty, to be his bold and efficient defenders. At the 
very first, the industrious malice of the cool and artful Clarendon, 
the base ingenuity of the scurrilous Denham, and the low but labored 
wit of Butler, concurred to misrepresent his motives and principles, 
and to hold up his character and life to derision. Since which, six 
generations of authors dependent, with few exceptions, on the great, 
for needful favor, and writing for their daily bread, have missed no 
opportunity for coupling his name with odious epithets. 

Meanwhile the credulity, not to say the injustice, of the reading 
public, has been passing strange. There has been, until quite lately, 
little cross-questioning. The common-sense principle — "he that is 
first in his own cause, seemeth just ; but his neighbor cometh and 
searcheth him" — has, by multitudes, been overlooked. Clarendon 
or the echoes of Clarendon have been heard, but not the noble 
Milton.* 

Ribald and pensioned wits have had the public ear but not. men 
who periled their lives for God and liberty. Garbled extracts 
and sayings, reported without regard to dates and explanatory circum- 
stances, have been read far and near ; but the actual speeches, letters, 
and other documents, which would have spoken for themselves and 
exhibited the man as he was, were mostly suffered, during nearly two 
long centuries of busy detraction, to lie unexamined and unpublished. 
Very many persons deemed intelligent, have unwarily received the 
statements and, with little or no abatement, adopted the opinions of 

* I refer, 1. To Milton's Pamphlet or Treatise, entitled " The Tenure of Kings and Magis- 
trates : proving that it is lawful, and hath been held so, through all ages, for any who have the 
power, to call to account a tyrant or wicked King ; and, after due conviction, to depose and put 
him to death; if the ordinary magistrate have neglected or denied to doit." This tract was 
published a few weeks after the execution of Charles 1. It explains and defends with great 
clearness and conclusiveness the principles on which that punishment was inflicted. 2. To his 
tract entitled " Eikonoklastes or Image-breaker," written in reply to a book or pamphlet falsely 
purporting to be from the pen of Charles, and designed to convey an exceedingly favorable im- 
pression of the King's character, motives, and actions. Milton's tract was so named, in allu- 
sion to the title of the pamphlet replied to, to wit: Eikon Basilike or Royal Image. By reading 
this reply of Milton — in which he most ably and eloquently exposes the tyranny, duplicity, and 
hypocrisy of Charles — it will be seen that the " Royal Image," which some even in this age and 
country seem disposed to venerate, is broken into rather small and unseemly fragments, repre- 
senting no longer either a saint or a good king. 3. To Milton's great tract entitled ' : A defence 
of the People of England," in answer to Salmasius' "Defence of the King." This treatise, 
which, though it defends the infliction of capital punishment upon a king, won, by its pre- 
eminent ability, the applause of some monarchs and of many dignitaries in Europe, deserves, 
as do most of the author's prose works, to be not only read but studied by all the educated men 
of this country. Milton was not a mere poet. Had his peculiar poetic genius been taken away, 
there would have remained more than enough to make a Clarendon, with the exception of 
Clarendon's meanness. The topics which Milton discusses, in most of his prose writings, are 
those with which it is good for the soul to grapple — those with which all republicans ought to be 
familiar. And they are treated in a style of such beauty, force and magnificence as to command 
the admiration of the best judges. The tasteful and eloquent Channing said, a little more than 
twenty years ago, " We rejoice that the dust is beginning to be wiped from his prose writings, 
and that the public are now learning what the initiated have long known, that these contain 
passages hardly inferior to his best poetry, and that they are throughout marked with the same 
vigorous mind which gave us Paradise Lost." And one year earlier, the brilliant Macaulay 
had said, " It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little 
read. As compositions, they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become ac- 
quainted with the full power of the English language. They abound with passages, compared 
with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field 
of cloth of gold. The style is stiff, with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the earlier books of 
the Paradise Lost has he ever risen higher than in those parts of his controversial works, in 
which his feelings, excited by conflict, find a vent in bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It 
is, to borrow his own majestic language, 'a seven-fold chorus of hallelujahs and harping 
symphonies.' " 



Hume, the high-tory and insidious maligner of all religion. Three 
things unfitted this elegant historian for coing justice to the Puritans : 
his indolence, which often kept him from needful research ; his oppo- 
sition to constitutional liberty, which led him sometimes — as Charles 
Fox and later writers have demonstrated — to forge facts where he 
needed them, and to suppress facts where they confronted him ; and 
his hostility to religious zeal, which prompted him to brand intelligent 
scriptural devotion to God with the odious name of bigotry or fanati- 
cism.* 

The violence of party spirit in England during the life-time of 
Cromwell, and in the age following, has never found a parallel in 
our own happy country, unless we view the Whigs and the Tories 
of the Revolution as constituting opposing political parties. Let us 
try to imagine what would have been the reputation of Washington 
and his associates, if that revolution had so far failed as to take the 
opprobrious name of rebellion, and all the high dignitaries of Church 
and State, with a crowd of hireling wits and calumniators, had been 
anxiously laboring during tbe whole period which has since elapsed 
to make them appear either fearfully odious or supremely ridiculous ! f 

No democrat, no whig, in our country during the last fifteen years, 

* Let it he noted here, that this stricture upon Hume's History of England stands word for 
word as it did when it was delivered before the ' Young Men's Association.' His credibility 
and authority, as to matters of fact and matters of opinion relating to the Puritans, are not 
objected to solely nor chiefly on account of his infidelity — indeed, I may say, not at all on account 
of his scepticism. Even "his hostility to religious zeal" is the last and the least of the three 
grounds of objection urged against him. As I have not space to detail the facts which I regard- 
ed as justifying this stricture, I will refer to the opinions of some eminent writers upon the 
points above specified. Gibbon describes Hume's History as "elegant but superficial." A 
powerful writer in the (London) Quarterly Review — evidently a Church-of-England man — 
says, (after mentioning a jocose allusion of Gibbon to Hume's indolence,) "the only glimpse 
we gain [respecting H.'s manner of writing history] is through a story told by a late venerable 
Scottish crony. Some one having hinted that David (Hume) had neglected an authority he 
ought to have consulted, the old gentleman replied — " Why, mon, David read a vast deal before 
he set about a piece of his book ; but his usual seat was the sofa, and he often wrote with his 
legs up ; and it would have been unco fashious to have moved across the room when any little 
doubt occurred." " All who oppose Hume's political principles — Towers, Stuart, Brodie, Fox, 
Laing, Allen, Smyth, Macaulay — reproach him with unfairness and insincerity — correct his 
misrepresentations, brand his crafty perversions ot truth. The most lenient and yet in some 
respects the most severe of his critics, Prof. Smyth, warns us to be ' ever suspicious' of the his- 
torian's particular prejudices.' " 

Hume's hostility to Christianity, in all of its forms, is also exposed by this writer. '• When 
reading Hume's History, we must carefully keep in view the meaning of the terms which he 
employs ; his technical language must be translated by turningto his own dictionary. Religion 
is with Hume either Superstition or Fanaticism. He so applies and counterehanges these oppro- 
brious terms as to include every possible form of Christianity. In the Churches of Rome and 
England superstition predominates ; in the Calvinistic Churches, which he detested most, 
fanaticism ; though all are equally assailed. When he bombards St. Peter's, his shells glance off 
upon St. Paul's. His spear pierces through Archbishop Anselm and pins Archbishop Howley to 
the wall. The filth with which he bespatters the Lateran Council, defiles the General As- 
sembly. But, alas ! each religious body, viewing only the damage done to its opponents, has 
been insensible of the hurt which its own cause receives from the bitter enemy of their common 
Head." This testimony is true. And let not religionists of any class be over anxious to strengthen 
and perpetuate an influence pernicious alike to all ; and let not republicans, though no friends to 
religion, forget that in David Hume popular institutions have had a most bitter and insidious 
enemy ; and that whilst he hated the piety of the Puritans, he abhorred also their strenuous 
advocacy of the great principles now embodied in our system of democratic republicanism. 
Those who desire to know how " Hume and His Influence upon History" are now regarded 
by very many besides the advocates of the Puritans, would do well to read the article on (hat 
subject in the Quarterly Review. It may be found in the Eclectic Magazine for July 1844. 

t We know that in Washington's day there were those even in this country— and at one time 
many — who violently opposed his measures, slighted his services, impugned his motives, and 
vilified his character ; and we know too that at the time of the Revolution, the dress, the per- 
sonal appearance and manners of the officers and soldiers of our army were the subject of almost 
as much merriment in the camp of Sir Henry Clinton, and in some of the British theatres, as 
those of the Roundheads were at the head-quarters of Prince Rupert and afterwards in the 
gay and profligate circles of Charles II. 



8 

would have been willing to have the character of Andrew Jackson or 
of Henry Clay go down to posterity as described by the most bitter 
and unscrupulous members of the opposite party. Yet the wrong 
which would thus have been done, falls far short of the injustice to 
which the good name of Cromwell has been exposed. Nevertheless, 
all the abuse heaped upon his memory has been insufficient to hide 
entirely his great and noble qualities from the view of his country- 
men. His illustrious actions could not be wholly concealed or mis- 
represented, nor the splendid days of his Protectorate — coming as 
they did between two ages of deep national infamy — be altogether 
forgotten. " Driveling fanatic" — " base hypocrite" — " barbarous 
usurper" — were phrases which could not but lose much of their sig- 
nificance when applied to the man with whom those days came an: 
with whom they passed away. " His character," says a most intelli- 
gent and candid British writer. " though constantly attacked and 
hardly ever defended, is popular with the great body of our country- 
men." 1 do. not wish to render to Cromwell anything more than 
truth and candor require. A character which shines in spite of two 
centuries of dark calumny, surely needs nothing more. Could the 
threat man now come up from the grave and occupy one of 
these seats and direct in regard to the portraiture of his life and 
character, he would doubtless say, " Describe me as 1 was :" he 
would exhibit the same noble spirit which he displayed when, as Lord 
Protector, he sat to young Lely for his picture — "Paint me as I am." 
Said he, "If you leave out the scars and wrinkles, 1 will not pay you 
a shilling." 

The account which may be given of Cromwell, in a single lecture, 
must of course be exceedingly brief and meagre. With the promi- 
nent events of his life, and especially the views ordinarily taken of 
his character by the class of writers already mentioned, I must sup- 
pose you all to be more or less familiar. 1 shall confine my atten- 
tion to the more important and characteristic facts of his history. 

Oliver Cromwell was born at Huntingdon, in St. John's Parish, a 
few miles north of Cambridge, on the 25th of April, 1599. His 
father was Robert Cromwell, youngest son of Sir Henry Cromwell 
and brother of Sir Oliver Cromwell; both of whom, we are tolc. 
dwelt successively, in rather sumptuous style, near by at the mansion 
of Hinchinbrook. His mother was Elizabeth Steward, daughter of 
William Steward, Esq., of Ely, a man of wealth and a kind of 
hereditary farmer of the Cathedral tithes and Church lands round 
that city* The genealogists affirm that, she was descended from the 
royal Stewart family of Scotland, and "they explain in intricate 
tables how she the mother of Oliver Cromwell was indubitably either 
the ninth or tenth or some other fractional part of half a cousin to 
Charles Stewart, King of England." I mention this circumstance 
not because it is to be deemed any great honor to Cromwell, but 
because I think it but fair to state any and every fact which may, 
even remotely, reflect credit upon the Stewart family. They cer- 
tainly stand in need even of small favors. Cromwell himself neve-, 
even in the days of his grandeur — when his enemies were misrepre- 



senting and denouncing him as of low origin — showed the least desire 
to have his parentage thought more respectable than it was. In this 
respect he exhibited a more uniformly healthy tone of mind even 
than Napoleon, who, when his father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria, 
proposed to employ certain genealogists to trace his lineage to some 
decayed branch of Italian royalty, nobly discouraged the attempt, 
saying, "I am the Rodolph of Hapsburg of my family." 

Cromwell's mother is described as a woman of ardent piety and 
excellent sense. She was an intelligent, large-hearted and zealous 
Christian — just the mother to train a son for usefulness and honor. 
Towards her, Oliver ever manifested a profound respect — reminding 
us of Washington's reverence for his mother. A sister of Oliver 
Cromwell's father was Mrs. Hampden, mother of the illustrious John 
Hampden. " In short," says Carlyle, " the stories of Oliver's 
' poverty,' if they were otherwise of any moment, are all false, and 
should be mentioned here, if still here, for the last time. The family 
was of the rank of substantial gentry and duly connected with such 
in the counties round for three generations back." 

Of Oliver's childhood, the writer just quoted speaks thus : " His 
biographers, or rather Carrion Heath, his first biographer, * whom 
the others have copied, introduce various tales into these early years 
of Oliver : of his being run away with by an ape along the leads of 
Hinchinbrook, and England being all but delivered from him, had the 
fates so ordered it ; of his seeing prophetic spectres ; of his robbing 
orchards and fighting tyrannously with boys ; of his acting school 
plays; of his &c. &c. The whole of which grounded on 'human 
stupidity' and Carrion Heath alone, begs us to give it Christian burial 
once for all. Oliver attended the public school of Huntingdon, which 
was then conducted by a Dr. Beard." 'VHe learned, to appearance 
moderately well, what the sons of other gentlemen were taught in 
such places ; went through the universal destinies which conduct all 
men from childhood to youth in a way not particularized in any one 
point by an authentic record. Readers of lively imagination can 
follow him on his bird-nesting expeditions," — " social sports and labors 
manifold ; vacation visits to his uncles, to aunt Hampden and cousin 
John among others : all these things must have been ; but how they 
specially were, is forever hidden from all men. He had kindred of 
the sort above specified ; parents of the Si>rt above specified ; rigorous 
yet affectionate persons and very religious, as all rational persons 

* James Heath, called "Carrion" Heath, from the character of the book he wrote, entitled 
" FlagMum or the life and death of 0. Cromwell the late usurper." The circumstances and the 
spirit in which he describes or rather misrepresents Cromwell, may be guessed from the follow- 
ing remarks of Carlyle. "When restored potentates and high dignitaries had dug up 'above 
a hundred buried corpses and dung them in a heap in St. Margaret's Church-yard,' the corpse 
of Admiral Blake among them and Oliver's old mother's corpse ; and were hanging on Tyburn 
gallows, as some small satisfaction to themselves, the dead clay of Oliver, of Ireton and Brad- 
shaw ;— when high dignitaries and potentates were in such a humor, what could be expected of 
poor pamphleteers and garreteers ? Heath's poor brown, lying Flagellant is described by one of 
the moderns as ' a Flagitium,' and Heath himself is called ' Carrion Heath,' as being an un- 
fortunate, blasphemous dullard and scandal to humanity ;— blasphemous ; who, when the 
image of God is shining through a man, reckons it, in his sordid soul, to be the image of the 
Devil and acts accordingly ; who in fact has no soul except what saves aim the expense of salt ; 
who intrinsically is Carrion and not Humanity." Which seems hard measure to poor James 
Heath. " He was the son of the King's cutler," says Wood, " and wrote pamphlets, the best 
he was able, poor man." 



10 

then were. He had two sisters elder, and gradually five younger ; 
the only boy among seven. Readers must fancy his growth there in 
the north end of Huntingdon, in the beginning of the seventeenth 
century, as they can." 

When he was seventeen years of age, he entered the University 
of Cambridge. Here he pursued his studies a little more than one 
year, and then discontinued his connection with the University in 
consequence of his father's death. Providence now called him to 
take his father's place at Huntingdon, and it was befitting his circum- 
stances that he should, as soon as possible, qualify himself for the 
duties of a county magistrate and the responsibilities of a gentleman- 
citizen. The universal and very credible tradition is, that he soon 
after went to London to attain some knowledge of the law. " Tbe 
stories of his wild living while in town, of his gambling, &c. , rest," 
says Carlyle, "exclusively on the authority of Carrion Heath, and 
solicit oblivion and Christian burial from all men." " Of evidence 
that he ever lived a wild life about town or elsewhere, there exists no 
particle." 

Whilst at London, he became acquainted with Elizabeth, a daugh- 
ter of Fir James Bourchier. To her he was married in Aug. 1620. 
He was now twenty-one years of age. His law-studies as such, gave 
place henceforth to the duties and cares of active life. Having re- 
turned to Huntingdon, he continued there for almost ten years, farm- 
ing lands and discharging " the civic, industrial, and social duties in 
the common way : living as his father before him had done." What- 
ever may have been his habits while he was reading law at London, 
it is certain that very soon after his return to Huntingdon, he became 
a zealous and exceedingly active professor of religion. He spent 
much time in studying the word of God, which, in the present author- 
ized English version, had then been published only about ten years. 
He was intimate with the Puritan preachers ; he made his house their 
home ; and sought by their labors and by every means in his power, 
to diffuse among the people a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. 
He prayed, he exhorted, and he expounded. Even those who credit 
the stories of his irregular deportment at London, admit that after his 
return to his home and his making a profession of piet3 r , he thoroughly 
reformed his habits and even refunded the money which he had won 
by gambling. 

Here let the date of his profession of religion, according to the 
faith of the Puritans, be carefully marked. Let those who affirm 
that he put on religion as a cloak to his ambition, observe that his 
piety dates back twenty years prior to the opening of the civil war — 
that he became a zealous Puritan at a time when Puritanism, instead 
of looking up with ambitious aspirations to the high places of power 
and honor in England, was sighing rather for an asylum in this wes- 
tern world. Men then knew not what we know. The morning of 
a brighter day was, indeed, about to dawn, but to mortal eyes it' was 
now the darkest hour of night. The day-spring of English liberty 
was still hid behind a fearful cloud. When no eye but the All-seeing 
could discern the changes which thirty years were to bring, the plain, 



II 

unassuming gentleman-farmer of Huntingdon, allied himself to a 
despised and persecuted cause. The Pilgrims, only a year or two 
before, had taken up their abode on ihe bleak shore of Plymouth. 
And eight or nine years after he began to pray and to exhort men to 
embrace Christ as their Saviour and to take the word of God, instead 
of bewildering traditions, for their life-lamp, another colony of his 
Puritan brethren — among whom bloomed the noble, the beautiful, the 
devoted A.rbella Johnson — went almost from his very neighborhood 
and laid the foundation of Boston. Do any say, "Cromwell was a 
keen, far-sighted observer, and he may have seen coming events even 
through the gloomy shadows going before, which hid them from the 
ken of ordinary mortals I" I answer, that to suppose him to have 
descried even the table of contents of the wonderful chapter in the 
book of Providence, which was to be held up to the view of Chris- 
tendom, during the next third of a century, is to invest him with the 
attributes of a prophet. The fact is undeniable that, in respect to 
evangelical Protestantism and to the cause of civil liberty, the state 
of things not only in England but throughout Europe, was at that 
time exceedingly unpromising. 

It is indeed true, that one hundred years anterior to this date, 
Luther, Zwingle, and Calvin had lifted up their voices, preaching 
justification by faith, individual responsibility directly to God, and 
the consequent right of private judgment ; and had awakened millions 
to a consciousness of what they owed to their Creator and to them- 
selves. It is true too that the revival of literature — closely connected 
with the religious revival of the Reformation — h;id brought light do 
multitudes who before were sitting in great darkness, and that the 
mass of European mind, like an ocean moving under the breath of the 
Almighty, had been heaving to and fro with an agitation which 
shook thrones and hierarchies, and at one time gave signs of a readi- 
ness to " make all things new." It should be conceded, moreover, 
that for a long period — in England extending back at least to the wars 
of the Roses — a new power in the state had been gradually coming 
into notice — the Middling Class. And commerce, aided by manu- 
factures, and, of late, stimulated with the unwonted energy infused 
by the discovery of the new World and of the passage to the East 
Indies by the cape of Good Hope, was multiplying the sinews of 
power and the sources of political importance in the hands of this 
class. But since the death of Luther,*the Reformation had, in general, 
either stood still or retrograded. The Protestants, instead of con- 
tinuing to preach the doctrine of justification by faith, — in which their 
whole power lay — had been wasting their strength in pernicious con- 
troversies. And Rome, having called into being the society of the 
Jesuits, had multiplied her schools and colleges, and incited the po- 
tentates subject to her sway, to draw the sword and kindle the fires of 
persecution, and had won back half of all that she lost during the 
life-time of the great reformer. Meanwhile, even in Protestant coun- 
tries, kings, nobles, and hierarchs, fond of power and alarmed at the 
spirit of revolution, before which thrones were tottering and traditions 
falling into contempt, had begun, many years since, to regard and to 



12 

treat with bitter hostility those who were laboring to perfect the work 
of religious reform and to diffuse the love and hope of liberty among 
the people. Not only so : after the quickening breath of the Father 
of Lights, which constituted the life of the Reformation, ceased in a 
great degree to be breathed upon the agitated mass of European 
mind, a cold, selfish scepticism, rendering multitudes distrustful of a 
righteous, overruling Providence, and cowardly, grovelling and frivo- 
lous, had, far and wide, taken the place of faith and hope ; and of that 
courage too which owes its energy to thoughts awakened in the soul, 
by the celestial splendors descending upon it from the face of the Sun 
of Righteousness. And the mighty Middling Class, dreading the 
many-headed tyranny of a feudal aristocracy, had been rushing into 
the jaws of absolute monarchy. In Spain and Portugal, in France 
and many of the States of Germany, in Denmark and Sweden, the 
tendency was to despotism. The republic of Holland stood like the 
unconsumed, burning bush — strangely, gloriously preserved, because 
the strength and life of God were yet in the hearts of her citizens. 
In England, the open battle between freedom and despotism had 
hardly begun. Heretofore there had been suffering, petitioning, and 
sometimes a remonstrance on the side of those who sighed for free- 
dom ; on the other, there had been insolence, cruelty, and a manifest 
determination to keep whatever power it possessed and to gain as 
much more as it could. 

No man cou:d tell how the struggle would end. James I. was still 
on the throne ; and how his son Charles would rule, or whether he 
would live to rule at all, was known to no mortal. And who could 
predict who were to be his chosen advisers or what they would ad- 
vise 1 Who could foretell what would be the temper of the people 
of England, or whom a revolution, should it occur, would exalt and 
whom it would put down ? What angel was permitted to hold up to 
the view of that obscure country gentleman, a bold Parliament re- 
suming and exercising lost and dormant rights, demanding justice 
against delinquents, and finally appealing to arms against a king 
proved false, cruel, and unworthy of trust ; and then enabled him to 
gaze upon the triumphs of Marston Moor and Naseby, the fall of the 
monarchy, the infliction of the death-penalty upon the king;- the 
victories of Dunbar and Worcester, and the glories of the Protec- 
torate ? 

But we have more direct proof that Cromwell did not thus pene- 
trate the future. A fact related by Neal, Hume, Keightley, Guizot, 
and many others, is conclusive. In the year 1637, not only Hamp- 
den, Pym, and Haslerig, but Cromwell had actually prepared to leave 
their country and were on board a vessel engaged to take them to 
New England, when a proclamation, emanating from the short-sighted 
bigotry of Archbishop Liud, prevented their leaving. He had now 
been a praying man for fifteen years ; and rather than throw off what 
some imagine to have been a mere cloak, assumed for the sake of 
promotion in England, he was willing to forsake his country and re- 
tire to a wilderness ! 

As shedding light upon the question of Cromwell's sincerity, his 



18 

letters deserve mention. A hundred and forty-seven of these, written? 
some to members of his own family, some to other near relatives or 
intimate friends ; some to public bodies or to persons in official sta- 
tions, and nearly all penned in haste and evidently not intended for 
publication, have recently been given to the world by Thos. Carlyle.* 
What do we find in these letters 1 Does hypocrisy betray itself in 
any one of them ? No. After a thorough perusal of them all. I 
affirm that those which were written to his most intimate friends, and 
obviously with the least caution, are the letters in which the Christian 
spirit is the most conspicuous, whilst they are all without exception 
in perfect keeping with the tenor of his public profession. His let- 
ters to his wife and to his children are all marked with the same 
habitual reference to the providence and will of God, the same cheer 
ful yet solemn sense of the divine presence — in shorty with the same 
religious fervour which we find him exhibiting in addresses and com- 
munications of a more public and less confidential nature. 

These letters throw a flood of light on many important points in 
his history, hitherto either entirely unknown or the subjects of gross 
misrepresentation. They exhibit him in the interesting relations of 
private as well as of public life — as u husband, a father a neighbor, 
and a professor of Christianity, as well as an actor in scenes where 
he was exposed to the scrutinizing gaze of the world. Indeed, no 
person should now feel qualified to pronounce an intelligent judgment 
upon the religious character of Cromwell, who has not thoroughly 
read both the letters and the speeches — which are published in the 
volumes of Carlyle- — and examined them too with a careful reference 
to the dates and all the circumstances, and especially to the views and 
the prevailing spirit of the Christian world in the age when he lived. 
In the light alone of such an examination, may any person of ordi- 
nary capacity see how a thousand insinuations and charges against 
the sincerity of Cromwell are set aside, as not only not proved, but 
disproved, f 

* Were Carlyle " ail infidel," his testimony in favor of Cromwell and the Puritans, whom 
infidels have been so much in the habit of abusing, might be regarded as an important concession, 
and as such, possessing an additional element of credibility. When a hater of religion, like 
Hume, maligns the fervent piety of religious men, he speaks in accordance with his prejudices ; 
but were he to praise such piety, he must do so in spite of his prejudices. But whilst I do not 
object to Hume as a historian solely or mainly on account of his infidelity, I lay no stress on 
Carlyle's testimony as the concession of a foe to all religion. That Thomas Carlyle should not 
be confounded with Richard Carlile — who, for blasphemy, was fined and imprisoned, in the 
city of London, in the year 1819, and as late as the year 1826 continued to glory in his punish- 
ment and in " his shame, "■ — is perhaps sufficiently evident at least to all men who are conver 
sant with the current literature of the age. Thomas Carlyle was born at Ecclesham, in Scot- 
land, in the year 1795. He was devoting his energies to the German literature, in those years 
when Richard Carlile was undergoing prosecution and punishment for retailing the blasphemy 
of Thomas Paine and others cf a like spirit. Thomas Carlyle commenced his career as an 
author by his " Life of Schiller" in 1825. (See Sup. Vol. of Encyc. Am.) That he is not 
" a blasphemer," might be inferred from the mere fact that he has been an admired contributor 
to such periodicals as the Edinburgh Review, Fraser's Magazine, the Foreign Quarterly Re- 
view, the Examiner, and the London and Westminster Review, for twenty years, as well as 
from the respectful manner in which several of his works have been noticed within a fejv 
months past, in seme of our most ably and cautiously conducted religious newspapers and 
reviews. 1 hat he is not an infidel, in any received sense of the term, will be evident to any 
person who shall be at the pains to read through his article on Voltaire, his " French Revolu- 
tion," or his " Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell." 

f The war against the good name of Cromwell has been carried on mainly by means of 
abusive epithets, ty innuendoes, by the grouping of facts or what purport to be facts, without 
regard to dales or explanatory circumstances, and by gathering up all the idle or malicious re- 
ports of his sayings, either garbled or misconstrued, as if they deserved to be received as the 



14 

Probably no man living has more thoroughly investigated all the 
documents which unfold the real history of Cromwell than Thomas 
Carlyle. This writer expresses his admiration of the straightforward- 
ness and prudence with which he pursued his way through so many 
difficulties and temptations without being guilty of "one proved false- 
hood." Encompassed with enemies, the most unscrupulous that the 
world evpr saw, he did, indeed, often leave men " uninformed," but 
there is no evidence that he ever left them "wi/sinformed." He was 
unquestionably sagacious and far-sighted ; and he, no doubt, knew 
well, when to speak and what to speak. And the same is true and 
must be true of every man fit to be intrusted with the management 
of public affairs. It was certainly a characteristic of our own Wash- 
ington. He too possessed much of what some one has styled " the 
great talent for silence." Cromwell had studied the book of Pro- 
verbs, and knew that "a fool uttereth all his mind," but that " a 
wise man keepeth it in till afterwards." That he never dissembled, 
is more than ought to be affirmed. Exposed, as he was, to such fear- 
ful trials of integrity, as few public men were ever called to meet, he 
must, b) the transparency of his life, have surpassed all the states- 
men, heroes, and patriots whose names adorn the pages of history, 
never to have been guilty of an act of dissimulation tor which "he 
was to be blamed." Yet I feel constrained, in view of the whole tenor 
of his life, — of his letters, his real conversations, his speeches, and 
his habitual deportment, — to declare my unwavering conviction that 
dissimulation did not characterize him. The symbol which truly 
represents him is not the fox, but the lion. His magnanimity and 
daring frankness have extorted acknowledgment even from his de- 
famers. When in the tremendous struggle of the civil war, many 

unchallenged statements of well authenticated history, instead of being treated as " the cast 
off slough'' of a shameless partisan literature. The character of Cromwell has suffered on the 
whole much less from extended narratives than from short sketches. In the former, the force of 
epithets and insinuations is, in a considerable degree, neutralized by facts which show them to be 
absurd or ridiculous; in the latter, there is all of the poison with much less of the antidote. 
His character, as exhibited or rather as half-darkened in the pages of such writers as Hume, is 
inexplicably mysterious, not to say incredibly unreal. Had a Writer of fiction conceived such a 
character, all readers would have exclaimed, "How grossly improbable." The following arc 
some of the elements of that character, as described by Hume. " Rustic buffoonery" — •' vein of 
frolic and pleasantry," " he himself was at bottom as frantic an enthusiast as the worst of" " the 
military fanatic*," whose "ignorance and low education exposed them to the grossest imposi- 
tion" — " uncontrolable fury of zeal," "cruel policy." "The murder of the king, the most 
atrocious of all his actions, was to him covered under a mishty cloud of repablican and fanatical 
illusions ; and it is not impossible but he might believe it, as many others did, the most merito- 
rious action that he could perform." " His extensive capacity enabled him to form the most en- 
larged projects." ''In proportion to the increase of his authority, his talents always seemed to 
expand themselves; and he displayed every day new abilities, which had lain dormant till the 
very emergency by which they were called forth into action." " A friend to justice." "His 
magnanimity Undervalued danger." " He was carried by his natural temper to magnanimity, to 
grandeur." " Eminent dexterity." " Signal military talents." Hume himself seems a little stas- 
gered at a compound made up of such uncombinable ingredients, and admits that Cromwell's 
character " docs appear extraordinary and unusual by the mixture of so much absurdity with so 
much penetration," and " by his tempering such violent ambition, and such r airing fanaticism, with so 
much regard for justice and humanity." Had Hume been half as eager in this instance as he was 
in some others, to reject the " unusual" and the " extraordinary," he would not have hesitated to 
add, " It is less improbable that historians should falsify than that a character so contrary to the 
course of human nature should ever have really existed." 

A remarkable example of grouping facts or pretended facts, without regard to dates and cir- 
cumstances, and of gathering up from their hiding places, stale and loathed calumnies, which 
were sinking into oblivion, may be found where many would least expect to find it, in that spite- 
fully uncandid work entitled the " Life of Oliver Cromwell," contained in Forster's "Statesmen 
of the Commonwealth of England." And yet the American editor of that book speaks of him 
as " the devout, God-fearing and stroDg-hearted Cromwell." 



15 

resorted to the flimsy legal fiction, that they were making war against 
the king " for the king," he astonished feebler spirits by saying 
openly, "If the king should meet me in battle, I would as soon fire 
my pistol in his face as in that of any other man." They were 
really at war with the king, and Cromwell's magnanimous spirit 
would not stoop to impertinent trifling with truth and fact. And this 
was characteristic. If he spoke at all, he spoke boldly — often ve- 
hemently. Indeed, it is worthy of remark, that the very writers who 
say so much respecting the duplicity and cunning of Cromwell, ac- 
cuse him of great violence of manner in his conversations and 
speeches, and even make mention of his " uncontrolable fury of 
zeal." 

Already has it been remarked that Cromwell, soon after his mar- 
riage, became a professor of religion according to the faith of the 
Puritans. This may require some explanation ; for possibly it may 
appear to some to be tantamount to accusing him of gross fanaticism 
and bigotry. Morose, fanatical, austere, are terms which have been 
in large use in a certain class of books relating to the Puritans, which 
many read more than they do the authentic history of that, people. 
These epithets are, to be sure, ordinarily employed with a very pru- 
dent omission of the particulars in which their moroseness and fanati- 
cism were exhibited. Having had some suspicion as to the propriety 
of the application of these terms to the Puritans, I have looked into a 
few of the books where I supposed due information might be found — 
I mean into books written by the enemies of the Puritans. Keight- 
ley says that the Puritans, in the reign of James I., " had been 
gradually converting the Christian Lord's day into a gloomy, sullen 
day of hearing sermons and shunning all innocent recreations." 
" The Catholics naturally took occasion to censure the reformed reli- 
gion for this gloom and morosity ; and the king and his clerical 
advisers thinking differently from the Puritans on the subject, a procla- 
mation was issued, forbidding any one to prevent the people from 
having, after divine service, dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting, and 
other manly and harmless recreations, as also maypoles, may-games, 
Whitsunales and moiris-dances." * 

Let it be observed that opposition to such sports — after Divine ser- 
vice on the Lord's day — as are here named, is the only specification 
which this writer gives under the sweeping charge that the Puritans 
" were harsh and morose, inquisitorial and censorious, absurdly scru- 
pulous about trifles, and the enemies of all pleasure and innocent 
recreation." f 

You are all aware that a poem called Hudibras, intended to hold 
up the Puritans to ridicule, was published in the time of Charles II, and 
greatly admired. Dr. Johnson, in his "Life of Butler," the author 
of this poem, lauds it in high terms — for no doubt it gave joy to his 

* History of England, Vol. II, p. 40. 

t It must not be supposed that all the members of the Church of England denounced the Puri- 
tans for endeavoring to prevent the, Christian Sabbath from being perverted into a demoralizing 
holiday. Then, as now, there were ' two manner of people' in that Church. The good Arch- 
bishop Abbot strongly sympathized with the Puritans, and forbade King James' ' Book of Sports' 
to be read in his presence at Croydon. 



16 

high-tory spirit to see the political as well as the religious principles 
and peculiarities of such a people caricatured and exposed to contempt — - 
and declares th.* t " much of that humor which transported the seven- 
teenth century With merriment is lost to us. who do not know the sour 
solemnity, the sullen superstition, the gloomy tnoroseness and the 
stubborn scruples of the ancient Puritans." For the purpose of en- 
lightening our ignorance touching their fanatical peculiarities. Dr. 
Johnson, himself the hero of the Cocklane ghost-hunt — the sage who 
once for several weeks, while in Scotland, refused to enter any of the 
houses of worship, because they had not been consecrated by a bishop ; 
and who commended the piety of a man for no better reason than 
because he took off his hat while passing a church — kindly mentions 
the following particulars : " We have never been witnesses of ani- 
mosities excited by the use of mince-pies and plum-porridge ; nor 
seen, with what abhorrence those who could eat them at all other 
times of the year, would shrink from them in December. An old 
Puritan who was alive in my childhood, being, at one of the feasts 
of the Church, invited by a neighbor to partake of his cheer, told him 
that if he would treat him at an ale-house with beer brewed for all 
times and seasons, he should accept his kindness, but would have none 
of his superstitious meats or drinks." Now any person who will at- 
tentively read 1 Co:-., VIII, may see the ground of the oldPuritan's 
scruples. It is evident from Dr. Johnson's own statement, that the 
Puritan regarded the drinking of ale and the eating of mince-pies aa>, 
in themselves, matters of perfect indifference ; but that when he saw 
them converted into a religious observance, — into an unauthorized and 
therefore superstitious service, subversive of the purity and scriptural 
order of Christian worship-— he would not countenance them as such. 
And what enlightened, evangelical Christian even at this day would '\ 
The only other specification of their fanatical peculiarities, furnished 
by the strong memory of Dr. Johnson, is in the following words. 
" One of the Puritanical tenets, was the illegality of all games of 
chance.* 

* In connection with the above specifications, the Doctor does indeed attempt to convict the 
Puritans as a body of gross stupidity ami ignorance. He asks: "What can be concluded of 
the lower classes of the people, when inf One of the- Parliaments summoned by Cromwell, it 

was seriously proposal that all the records in the Tower should he burnt,' &e ? But he seems to 
have forgotten that no such silly proposition was adopted, or would have found favor witb one 
in a thousand of the Puritans, even if it had been, by some strange freak, passed by a majority 
in Parliament. That was an age of discussion and of great freed, in in declaring individual 
opinions. There were undoubtedly hanging upon the skirts of the Puritan party a few fanatics, 
a few ' levelers,' a few fifth-monarchy men, a few men of a wild, destructive spirit ; but to say 
that these constituted the great body of the Puritans in general, or of the Independents in par- 
ticular, is just about as near to the real truth of authentic history as it would be, two hundred 
years hence, to say that in 1843, the Congregationalistsof New England wore MUleritss, or in 
1846, Fourier- 

Suppose that some member of our National Legislature should propose a measure equally 
absurd with that mentioned by Dr. Johnson, would this prove that there is no wisdom in out 
Congress, and Would it be fair to conclude that the mass of the people of our country are 
fools? Those who desire to learn what were really the distinguishing principles and usages of 
the Puritans, would do well to read Halls excellent work on that subject; Neat's History ; 
Vol. I. of Bancroft's Hist, of U. S. ; De Tocqueville's ' Democracy in America,' especially 
Chap. II.; and Bacon's Historical Discourses — particularly the second discourse, in which the 
author most clearly and eloquently exposes not merely t!;e falsity but tiie ridiculousness of the 
charge that the Puritans were an illiterate people and the enemies of learning. Those wbo have 
derived their views or impressions (if the Puritans from sources like Butler's Hudibras, or some 
of Sir Walter Scott's Novels, or certain works styled histories but dealing largely in fiction, — 
such as Peter's ' History' of Conn., containing the real original — not copy— of the famous coda 
of " blue-laws"~may be surprised to learn that Ligiitfoot, Gale, Selden, Pym, Hampden, Owen, 



17 

The uninformed would, surely, expect to learn that all others who 
lived in England in the age when this amazing lanaticism was rife, 
were comparatively free from everything savoring of bigotry or of 
absurdity in the things of religion — that they dwelt, in fact, in the 
unfailing sunshine of good sense and sober truth. How this really 
was, may be conjectured from a few sentences extracted from the 
diary of that distinguished luminary, Archbishop Laud, the exceed- 
ingly influential and potent " Primate of all England" during the 
reign of Charles I. Noting from day to day the events which most 
deeply impressed his lofty mind as worthy of record, this clear-headed 
leader of those who were afterwards transported with merriment at 
the remembrance of Puritanical fanaticism, tells us how his picture 
fell down and how fearful he was lest the fall should be an omen ; 
how he dreamed that King James walked past him ; that he saw 
Thomas Flaxage in green garments and the Bishop of Worcester 
with his shoulders wrapped in linen. Early in the year 1627, the 
sleep of this great light-bearer was disturbed— if we may credit the 
solemn notices in his diary — repeatedly. Do. not understand me as 
blaming him for dreaming. As it was at that season of the year 
when his holy Christmas mince-pies had doubtless been receiving 
many proofs of his august regard, these night visions could not well 
be helped. But that such a man should tell us on paper what he 
dreamed — that he should inform us how he dreamed he saw the Bishop 
of Lincoln jump on a horse and ride away — that he gave the king 
drink in a silver cup and the king refused and called for a glass, is, 
indeed, surprising : — especially is it strange that he should make the 
following record. " I dreamed," says he, " that I had the scurvy ; 
and that forthwith all my teeth became loose. There was one in 
especial in my lower jaw, which 1 could scarcely keep in with my 
finger till I had called for help." I will not ask in the style of Dr. 
Johnson, what can be concluded of the lower classes of the people, 
when a dignitary so much venerated as Archbishop Laud, was thus 
sunk in superstition, but inquire if it would not be well for all those 
at least who dwell in this land, which is so much indebted to the Pil- 
grims, and others ol like spirit and principles in the old world, to 
learn what were the exact grounds on which the Puritans were 
charged with austerity and moroseness ? 

In the age under review, they were the great reforming party, both 
in Church and State. If they were scrupulous about some things 
which are now considered trifles, it should be remembered that the 
Puritans themselves viewed them as intrinsically unimportant, and as 
calling for their stern opposition solely on account of the superstitious 
consequence attached to them by persecuting prelates and kings. 
If they were rigorously exact in their observance of the fourth Com- 

Howe, Baxter, Charnoch, and Milton, were all Puritans, and true representatives of the differ- 
ent phases of the Puritan mind. 

Bancroft says that the Puritans " foundod national grandeur on universal education," and 
that "of all contemporary sects they were the most free fiom credulity, and, in their zeal fur 
reform, pushed their regulations to what some would consider a sceptical extreme. So many 
superstitions had been bundled up with every venerable institution of Europe, that ages have 
not yet dislodged them all. The Puiitans at once emancipated themselves from a crowd of ob- 
servances. They established a worshippurely spiritual." (Hist, of the V. S., Vol. 1., p.«l(M — 80 



18 

rnandment, it should not be forgotten that they were zealous for an 
exceedingly important precept of God's law, and justly regarded 
themselves as called upon by the voice of the Divine word and Provi- 
dence, to take an unflinching stand in behalf of an institution, on the 
maintenance of which depends the prosperity, physical and moral, 
individual and social, of man. Then, not unfrequently, were princi- 
ples and measures denounced as fanatical, which are now cherished 
as obviously scriptural and momentously important by all classes of 
evangelical Protestants, — by Dr. Tyng and the accomplished Bishops 
of Calcutta and Ohio, no less than by the venerable Beecher, Stuart, 
and Alexander. 

Nay ; intelligent men, though of no religious profession, and 
regarding institutions only in their temporal bearings, are fast coming 
to the conclusion that the Lord's Day observed — not according to the 
prescriptions of King James' " Book of Sports," but according to the 
directions of the word of God — is indispensable to our well-being in 
this world : that the Sabbath appointed amid the singing of the morn- 
ing stars and the shouting of the sons of God over the finished work 
of creation, was made for man. They are beginning to judge the 
tree by its fruits ; the fountain by its streams; the great principles of 
the Puritans by their results. They are learning to regard those men, 
so long mistaken for fanatics, as the true moral heroes of their age — ■ 
to see that their minds, looking up to the Father of Lights, through 
his word, apprehended, their lips asserted and their arms vindicated 
those truths instinct with the energy of immortal life, which have in 
a measure regenerated England and given light, glory, and prosperity 
to the tree States of this Union. 

Those who desire the coming of the day when freedom, nurtured 
and preserved through the benign operation of Christian principle, shall 
encircle the earth with its blessings, behold now with joy the healthful 
current of Puritan influence flowing out farther and farther upon the 
world, one of the noblest of the streams which make glad the city of 
(rod. In our own land, spreading far and wide, from Plymouth to the 
Falls of St. Anthony, they see, wherever it flows, colleges, semi- 
naries, free-schools and churches, well indoctrinated and put in pos- 
session of the arguments and defences of revealed religion, springing 
up and flourishing as willows by the water courses ; and imparting 
strength and hope to the nation in its experiment of civil and religious 
liberty. 

To increasing multitudes, not only here but in other lands, it is 
beginning to appear — what it always was in reality — ridiculous to 
impute, especially to the Puritans, infirmities which, if they possessed 
them at all, they possessed in a less degree than any other class of peo- 
ple of the age ; and, ungrateful as well as unjust, to stigmatize as 
bigotry that enlightened, reformatory zeal, to which the world is in- 
debted for so many benefits. 

It was, indeed, the great glory of the Puritans to be free from 
whatever deserved the name of superstition. They were devout stu- 
dents of the Divine word. They loved to gaze upon the Holy Mount 
where the Eternal sits enthroned — to meditate on that scheme oi 



19 

Providence, the ways of which are everlasting ; on the moral govern- 
ment of God and the history of human redemption ; on truths which 
thrill the hosts of heaven and carry sinking of heart to fallen princi- 
palities and powers. To minds thus raised above the sphere of earthly 
littleness and spiritualized into abhorrence of whatever served to ob- 
struct their view of God's revealed realities, unauthorized ceremonies 
and uncommanded rites, as connected with worship, were at once 
puerile and abominable. Penetrated with a profound sense of what 
was due to them as creatures made a little lower than the angels, and 
endowed with reason and conscience and the power of voluntary and 
responsible action, and subject to the hopes and fears which gather 
around immortality, they felt it to be iheir right, as it was their duty, 
to think and to worship, untrammeled by the prescriptions of a fellow 
man. And gazing habitually on the Lord of Hosts, as the Father 
and Governor of the whole human brotherhood, and seeing the dis- 
tance between the highest and the lowest of our race dwindling into 
nearness and equality, as compared with the interval which separates 
the most exalted of mankind from the King Eternal, it was natural 
that they should spurn as absurd and impious the distinctions which 
human selfishness and folly had reared. Civil government they 
recognized as the ordinance of God ; but his ordinance not for the 
benefit of rulers only, but of the whole people. They feared God, 
and they feared none other. In this consisted their fanaticism— a 
fanaticism which is giving fieedom to increasing millions of our 
nation and race.* 

I have thus dwelt upon this topic, because unless the character 
of Cromwell is viewed in this aspect, it cannot be comprehended at 
all. ' The life and character' of such a man, without his religion, 
would be like the play of Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet left out. 
Cromwell's strongest sympathies and most intimate associations, from 
the time he first made a profession of piety-, were with that branch of 
the great Puritan family, which was the most remarkable for the 
characteristics just described — that branch upon which the spirit of 
devotion to God and to country, and of improvement in whatever 
truly exalts and adorns humanity, was poured out in a measure alto- 
gether peculiar and glorious. What were* the principles and what 
the spirit of the English Independents, may be known by all who will 
be at the pains to learn what were the principles and what the spirit 
of the founders of New England. 

Cromwell's parliamentary career commenced in 1628. He then 
took his seat in the third parliament of Charles I., as a member for 
the borough of Huntingdon. f 

* Bancroft says, " Puritanism was a life-giving spirit ; activity, thrift, and intelligence fol- 
lowed in its train ; and as for courage, a coward and a Puritan never went to-gether." " The 
fanatic for Calvinism, was a fanatic for liberty." Speaking of their efforts in England in the 
latter part of Elizabeth's reign, he says, " The Puritan clergy were fast becoming tribunes of 
the people and the pulpit was the place for freedom of rebuke and discussion." " The precious 
spark of liberty," says Hume, " had been kindled and was preserved by the Puritans alone. 
" Puritanism," says De Tocqueville, " was not a mere religious doctrine but it corresponded in 
many points with the most absolute democratic and republican theories. It was this tendency 
'.vhich aroused its most dangerous adversaries." 

fHe continued to reside at Huntingdon till 1631. He then removed to St. Ives; and thence 
'•Sve yeavs afterwards to Ely. 



20 

Here he found himself among men, whose names are now known 
and honored wherever distinguished talent and ardent patriotism find 
admirers. His noble cousin John Hampden, the sagacious and elo- 
quent Pym, Sir Robert Philips, Sir John Eliot, — these were of the 
leading stars then shining on the popular side of the parliamentary 
firmament. Already had the nation begun to rock to and fro in the 
incipient tremblings of the earthquake of revolution. Already had it 
become evident to the more discerning that the King was intent on 
making the monarchy of England what the monarchy of France and 
of Spain was already — absolute. This was the lesson which his 
father had taught him by precept and by example ; this was the task 
to which his wife, the imperious daughter of Henry IV of France, 
was prompting him with a ceaseless and infatuated urgency ; this 
was the object to which his own selfish and despotic nature was im- 
pelling him with an unrelenting and finally desperate determination. 
Meanwhile England, in her great interests-— her religion and litera- 
ture, in her commerce and manufactures — in her totality of civiliza- 
tion — was outgrowing her old governmental forms — her garments 
were waxing small — and she was giving some signs of desire to ac- 
commodate herself more liberally. But popular revolutions had not 
then become common events. The sun of American freedom had not 
then risen. The French Revolution was yet among things to come. 
The march of modern Democracy — calling potentates to account and 
overturning thrones ana dynasties — was not a thing as yet known and 
read of all men. On the side of oppressors there was power, and the 
knowledge how to take it away was not then the comfort of the na- 
tions. En'gland must try the great experiment of revolution and of 
effort in behalf of popular rights. 

Lights and shadows strangely commingling in the prospect, caused 
the hearts of far-seeing statesmen to beat fitfully with the conflicting 
emotions of hope and fear. There were men in Parliament and out 
of Parliament, who were deep-read in the living oracles of truth, who 
had grasped, with an energy and faith known only to souls whom the 
light of heaven has made free, the principles which lie at the founda- 
tion of all good government, and who longed with the steady ardor of 
profound and earnest spirits for a change which should realize their 
conception of a commonwealth without king and nobles, and of a 
church in which prelatical assumption and tyranny should be discard- 
ed.* But at present, the great majority of the nation looked not so 
far. They sought only the reform of certain abuses and the practi- 
cal recognition of certain rights. 

1 will not insult tnis auditory with an argument to prove that the 
representatives of the people of England had the right to demand of 
the king the removal of enormous grievances and the acknowledg- 
ment of the law-protected liberties of the nation — or that having 
conceded so much, he was under obligation to keep his word of 
promise, f 

* See Bancroft's Hut. of U. S., Vol. I. and especially Chap. VIII, and Milton's Prose Works, 
Vol. I., (as published by H Hooker, Phil., 1845,) particularly the article on " Reformation in 
England" and other treatises which immediately follow it. 

f Even if in regard to the principle that governments are instituted for the maintenance of 



21 

When Cromwell first entered Parliament, the strife with th« King 
had been in progress three years. Parliament after Parliament had 
been angrily dissolved ; one royal promise after another had been 
broken, and the discerning were fasi learning that the liberties of the 
nation must be abandoned or the perils of a fearful struggle bravely 
met. 

Cromwell's first appearance as a speaker was every way charac- 
teristic. With a thread-bare coat and, as, some say, with a hat without 
a hat-band, he made, it is true, a not very promising figure in such 
an assemblage. Pym had just accused Mainwaring, the royal chap- 
lain of Popish practices. In the course of the debate on this case, 
Cromwell arose and spoke with a fervor, a boldness, and a power 
which produced at once a strong sensation. He was not an elegant 
speaker. He was not always clear and self-possessed. To the very 
close of his life, his thoughts seemed to come forth not in a flowing, 
unbroken stream, but rather as a mountain torrent, forcing its way 
in spite of obstacles. Yet the transcendent power of the man — his 
mighty intellect, his boldness, his directness of aim, his overwhelming 
vehemence, made him from the very first a speaker to whom friends 
and foes listened. 

This Parliament — so distinguished for the energetic courage which 
obtained from the king the grant of the Petition of Right, binding 
him to imprison no man except by legal process ; to leave the cogni- 
zance of offences to the ordinary tribunals ; to billet no more soldiers 
on the people ; and to raise no taxes without the consent of Parlia- 
ment ; and ventured to lift up the voice of stern remonstrance 
against certain tyranical and papistical practices in the high places of 
the national Church — was soon after dissolved. The King was about 
to try the dangerous experiment of extorting money from the nation, 
and of thus reigning without any Parliament. 

I will not detain you with a detail of the events of those eleven 
years of highhanded and lawless oppression, during which Laud and 
Strafford, wielding the combined terrors of ecclesiastical and of civil 
power, endeavored with a ruthless and unfaltering energy to carry 
out the despotic purposes of Charles. Then, contrary to ancient 
laws as well as the recent stipulations of the Petition of Right, mon«y 
was wrung from the nation, and soldiers were vexatiously quartered 
on the people ; then, in violation of a royal promise, all the powers 
of the arbitrary tribunal of the Star Chamber and of the lawless Court 
of High Commission, were terrifically developed and exercised, and 
unrighteous judgments, exorbitant fines, unwarranted imprisonments, 
the pillorying of good men after cutting off their ears and slitting their 
noses, and other meanly cruel wrongs and outrages were of almost 
daily occurrence. I will only remark that Charles is not to be 
held guiltless touching these acts of ruthless tyranny, on the ground 

the rights of the people— such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness— and derive their 
just powers from the consent of the governed — we were to admit that it was "self-evident" only 
in this country and in the year 1776, yet it should be observed that Charles I., for full and am- 
ple consideration, solemnly, or at least very formally and explicitly, yielded to certain demands 
of the nation, e. g., the things set forth in the " Petition of Right." He had therefore no risht 
to exercise any longer prerogatives which he had thus surrendered, unless it be admitted that 
kings have " a divine right" to falsify their word ! 



either of their having been done by Laud and Strafford, or of his 
having been badly advised. Who entrusted to the hands of these 
cruel men the power to do so much wrong ? Did not Charles ? A.nd 
wky did he select and retain such advisers? Was it because there 
were no prelates in the Church who were humane men and pious, 
that he was under the necessity of clothing so merciless a bigot as 
Laud with spiritual powers so vast ? And was it for want of states- 
men of enlarged minds and patriotic feelings, that he made Strafford 
his counsellor and his chief minister of state ? No, he promoted Laud 
and he lured into his service the eloquent and mighty Strafford, not 
to be misled by them, but because he saw that in their different 
spheres they would be efficient instruments of despotism. It is ob- 
vious, from facts not denied by historians partial to him, that he was 
not a well-meaning, kind-hearted man, led to do evil unintentionally, 
but, on the contrary, self-willed, cold-hearted, artful and imperious.* 
It is true that he was unwise and fickle in his measures. Seeking 
to accomplish such an object as he did, in such a country as England 
and in opposition to such a spirit of freedom as was gradually awaken- 
ed, his general purpose was little short of madness. But to this his 
own proud, selfish heart was the chief prompter, and his rash and 
wicked measures were as often adopted against the wishes as with 

the advice of his friends.f * 

— . * 

* Witness, for example, his false publication of his answer to the Petition of Right (see 
Guizot's Rev. of 1640, p. 55) ; his habitual violation of all his promises, which he found it 
either inconvenient or unpleasan: to keep (see Macaulay's Mis. Art. Hampden or any history 
which gives the details of his course with his Parliaments, e. g., Guizot's) ; his angry dissolu- 
tion of his Parliaments — especially of that which met in April 1640 (even Clarendon condemns 
this act) ; and his attempt to arrest by violence and in opposition to all law, five obnoxious mem- 
bers of t;ie Commons on the 3d of Jan. 1642. " This he did without giving the slightest hint 
of his intention to those advisers whom he had solemnly promised to consult." Even Hume, 
with all his sophistry, is unable to make Charles appear honest and well-meaning. 

t Since the delivery of this lecture, the wonder has in one or more instances been expressed 
that I did not give Charles credit for his " many -private and domestic virtues." To this 1 reply, 
that my subject required me to speak of Charles only in refeience to his public conduct — that 
conduct which justified the course pursued towards him by Cromwell and other patriots w.-io 
made war upon him and called him to account as a •' tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public 
enemy." Besides, I must say, with all frankness, that I have for years looked with a feeling 
akin to indignation upon the attempt to offset a few " household decencies" — against the great 
crimes of a public life marked with the cruelty, the ingratitude, and " the incurable dissimula- 
tion" which characterized the career of Charles I. In regard to the influence which these 
" virtues" ou^'ht to have upon our estimate of bis character, 1 most cordially concur with the 
Hon. T. B. Macaulay, " a Churchman," a member of the British Parliament and one of the 
most popular writers of the age. " And what, after all," asks he, " are the virtues ascribed to 
Charles? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his son [James II, who, for his cruel 
bigotry, was driven from the throne and the realm in 1688] and fully as weak and narrow 
minded, and a few of the ordinary household decencies, which half the tombstones in England 
claim for those who lie beneath them. A gotid father '. A good husband ! Ample apologies 
indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny and falsehood We charged him with having 
broken his coronation-oath — and we are told that he kept his marriage vow ! We accuse him 
of having given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard- 
hearted of prelates — and the defence is that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him ! 
We censure him for having violated the articles of the Petition of Right, alter having, for good 
and valuable consideration, promised to observe them — and we are informed that he was ac- 
customed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning ! It is to such considerations as these, 
together with his Vandyke dress, his handsome face and his peaked beard, that he owes, we 
verily believe, most of his popularity with the present generation. For ourselves, we own that 
we do not understand the common phrase — a good man but a bad king. We can as easily con- 
ceive a good man and an unnatural father or a good man and a treacherous friend. We cannot, 
in estimating the character of an individual, leave out of our consideration his conduct in the 
most important of all human relations. And if, in that relation, we find him to have been 
selfish, cruel and deceitful, we shall take the liberty to call him a bad man, in spite of all his 
temperance at table and all his regularity at chapel." Those who make so much of the conduct 
of Charles, just before and at the time of his execution, as proof of his piety and previous inno- 
cency of life, need perhaps to be reminded that half the felons who have suffered capital punish- 
ment, and more than half the state-criminals who have been put to death in England, have died 



23 

On the 3d of November, 1640, met that famous Parliament which 
undertook in hopeful earnestness and with surpassing ability and fore- 
sight to redress the grievances of the nation. By calling Strafford 
and Laud to account for their crimes, by abolishing the irregular and 
illegal courts in which justice had been so cruelly outraged, by re- 
affirming the articles of the Petition of Right, and by determining 
not to intrust the control of the military force of the nation in the 
hands of a king whose repeated acts of perfidy proved that he wanted 
only the power to take back more than all he, had conceded, the friends 
of freedom soon found themselves exposed to the gloomy horrors of 
civil war. Cromwell sat in this Parliament as a member for Cam- 
bridge Town. Though he did not often speak, yet it is evident from 
what he did say, as well as from his actions, that he comprehended 
more clearly and more profoundly the actual condition of the nation 
in its struggle with tyranny and the remedy which existing evils 
called for, than the great majority of the distinguished men by whom he- 
was surrounded. Convinced that decisive measures were the wise.-.! 
and best in such a crisis, he was characteristically bold, energetic and 
uncompromising. That the Parliament was justifiable in adopting 
those great measures of resistance to regal despotism, which led to 
the civil war, is, I trust, too evident to need further proof. Thus far. 
Cromwell has acted in company with men whose clearness of judg- 
ment and purity of motives are not often questioned. The civil war 
was not brought on by him any more than by Hampden, Pym, and a 
host of others who had gradually become convinced that they must 
conquer the tyrant or be crushed and dishonored beneath his arm out- 
stretched for their subjugation. He did not raise the whirlwind. Its 
furious blasts were shaking the whole realm while he was yet a com- 
paratively obscure and unknown man. At the commencement of 
hostilities, his position in the Parliamentary army was not such as to 
create any reasonable expectation that he would become the hero of 
the war. And there was little probability that " a voice from the 
whirlwind of battle" would designate him as chosen to occupy the 
vacant seat of supreme power erected on the ruins of the demolished 
throne. The Earls of Essex and Manchester, Sir Thomas Fairfax, 
Hampden, and others had the precedence, and for a considerable time 
promised to retain it. The man who was to become the first general 
of the age, had now lived to be more than forty years old without 
having taken his first lessons in war. He had entered upon the down- 
ward slope ot active life, and as yet given no signs of an ambition 
craving military rule. How strange had been his course of prepara- 
tion for the part he was about to act! In his boyhood, no mimic 
battles; in his youth, no military school with its science and its disci- 
pline ; in his manhood, no service abroad under "the great king of 

far better than they had lived — illustrating the remark that many a person has died admirably who 
had lived abominably. One grand defect, however, in the death-scene of Charles, was the ab- 
sence of all evidence of genuine repentance for those crimes by which he had brought so manv 
calamities upon the nation. Notwithstanding all the force of education and of regal prejudices, 
he must have known that his perfidy, duplicity, and violence were inexcusably wrong. Macau- 
liy and many other writers friendly to the Church of England, have declared it " absurd" and 
" ridiculous" to speak of Charles as having died " a martyr" for that Church. It is by many 
doubted wnether that Church was in his view any thing belter than a convenient instrument of 
power, and whether he was even a Protestant except by profession 



24 

SwecLn," or other renowned commander, had given him skill or 
reputation as a player at the terrible game of war. But, says one 
who knew him intimately and had studied his character profoundly, 
u he was a soldier disciplined to perfection in the knowledge of him- 
self. He had either extinguished or by habit had learned to subdue 
the whole host of vain hopes, fears and passions which infest the soul. 
He first acquired the government of himself and over himself acquired 
the most signal victories; so that on the first day he* took the field 
against the external enemy, he was a veteran in arms consummately 
practised in the toils and exigencies of War." * His long residence 
in the country had familiarized and impressed his mind with the sim- 
plicity, the freshness, the beauty and the grandeur of rural scenery ; 
and his intercourse with men of all classes, and especially of those 
classes in which character appears with the least disguise, had made 
him thoroughly acquainted with the feelings, opinions and social con- 
dition of the English people. His course of life had furnished an 
excellent discipline for his admirable common sense which so uniform- 
ly kept him from mistaking fancies for facts and misty clouds for 
everlasting hills. His familiarity with sacred history, with the prin- 
ciples of God's providential and moral governwent, and with the 
prophetic descriptions of the knowledge, righteousness, freedom and 
prosperity of mankind in the days of Zion's glorious enlargement, 
had given to his views an expansion and to his heart a strength of 
hope, which no other subjects of thought could have imparted. And 
his early study of the principles of the Common Law as well as of 
those inspired Institutes wherein the elements of all law and the true 
ends of all good government are unfolded, had, in those days of deep 
excitement and of profound thought, when Laud and Strafford, under 
the countenance of Charles, were tyrannizing over the nation, 
wonderfully enlarged and liberalized his mind. His subsequent exhi- 
bitions of greatness were indeed the natural result of that sell -train- 
ing and that leisure for meditation on things fitted to expand the soul 
which had been, to the present hour, peculiarly his. If he had not 
given his days and nights to the study of the lives of Plutarch's 
heroes, he had learnt by heart the story of men who, " out of weak- 
ness, were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight 
the armies of the aliens." If he had not glowed over the exploits of 
Achilles and slept with the Iliad under his pillow, he had devoted 
many an hour of intense emotion to the triumphal songs of Miriam 
and Deborah, of Moses and David. If he had not examined with a 
critic's eye the pages of Herodotus and Thucydides, of Livy and Taci- 
tus, he had studied the book of Divine Providence and read the story 
of this world in its grand outlines with the spirit of those men of his 
day who viewed history as "a mighty drama enacted on the theatre 
of Infinitude ; with suns for lamps and eternity as a back ground, 
whose Author is God and whose purport and thousand-fold moral lead 

* See Milton's " Second Defence of the People of England." The reference to this work 
was accidentally omitted on p. 6. It contains interesting notices of Cromwell, Fleetwood, 
Lambert and others, and deserves to be read by all those who wish to know in what estimation 
Cromwell was held by one of the greatest, purest and most independent political writers that 
England has ever produced. 



25 

us up to the ' dark with excess of light' to the Throne of God." And 
if, while gazing upon the bright and awful realities of the unseen 
world, his soul was excited into a fervency which some men call 
fanaticism, let it be remembered how grand and thrilling those things 
are upon which he looked, and that when from above descending, his 
mind beheld what the world styles great, he was unmoved, for he saw 
nought but littleness. 

Thus prepared, at the age of forty-three, he entered the military 
service of his country, known at first only as Capt. Cromwell of the 
Eastern Association. 

The war which the Parliamentarians by skillful and decisive mea- 
sures might have brought, within a ^ew weeks, to a triumphant termi- 
nation, was tediously protracted. Essex, Manchester, and others 
were inefficient. When the second year of the struggle was drawing 
towards its close, the balance of results was favorable to the king. 
The great and good Hampden, who, in the cause of liberty, had drawn 
tho sword and thrown away the scabbard, was among the slain ; nearly 
all the strong places ia the kingdom were in the hands of the Royalists ; 
and despondency and disaffection were spreading among those who 
heretofore had sided with Parliament. But during this time, Crom- 
well had been displaying those qualities which could not fail to raise 
him rapidly to distinction. His public spirit, his courage, his confi- 
dence of success and prompt wisdom in the use of means for its attain- 
ment, his inflexible decision, — all combining to give him that over- 
powering energy for which he was ever remarkable — and his apti- 
tude for collecting together and training for victory a host of high- 
souled citizen-warriors, filled with the fear of God and raised above 
all other fear, were not long in making him known throughout the 
nation as a man of incomparable ability. He soon perceived that 
the Parliamentarian troops and especially the cavalry were no match 
for the proud array of noblemen and gentlemen who composed so 
large a portion of Prince Rupert's formidable body of cavaliers. 
Immediately after the first great but indecisive battle, he told Hamp- 
den that they never could succeed "with a set of poor tapsters and 
town-apprentice people against men of honor." To cope with men 
of honor, he declared they must have men of religion. "It is a good 
notion," said Hampden, " if it can be executed." The subsequent 
realization of this conception of an army capable of scattering to the 
winds all opposition, — a realization on which the cause of English 
liberty was now suspended — was due. under God, solely to the genius, 
the energy, and the religious character of Cromwell. In the region 
within and around Lincolnshire — the nld home of our Pilgrim and 
Bostonian fathers — where the famous Eastern Association was acting 
with so much energy, he commenced the enlistment and the training 
of his renowned corps of invincibles, known as the Ironsides. "By 
the vigor of his genius or the excellence of his discipline, adapted, 
not more to the necessities of war, than to the precepts of Christianity, 
the good and the brave were from all quarters attracted to his camp, 
not only as to the best school of military talents, but of piety and 
virtue. Hence he collected an army as numerous and as well equip- 



26 

ed as any one ever did in so short a time ; which was uniformly 
obedient to his orders and dear to the affections of the citizens ; which 
was formidable to the enemy in the field, but never cruel to those who 
laid down their arms; which committed no lawless ravages on the 
persons or the property of the inhabitants ; who, when ihey compared 
their conduct with the turbulence, the intemperance, the impiety and 
the debauchery of the Royalists, were wont to salute them as friends 
and to consider them as guests. They were a stay to the good, a 
terror 1o the evil, and the warmest advocates for every exertion of 
piety and virtue." * Those who imagine that these armed defenders 
of the liberty of conscience and intelligent asserters of the principle 
that a king whose government is selfish, burdensome and tyrannical, 
may lawfully be deposed, were led by a wild and ignorant fanaticism, 
they knew not whither, betray a singular misapprehension of their 
real character and history, j- The great writer just quoted, described 
them, after their victories were all won and their character fully 
developed, as " men of exemplary modesty, integrity and courage ; 
whose hearts had not been hardened in cruelty and rendered insensible 
to pity by the sight of so much ravage and so much death, but whom 
it bad rather inspired with the love of justice, with a respect for re- 
ligion and with the feeling of compassion and who were more zeal- 
ously interested in the preservation of liberty in proportion as they 
had encountered more perils in its defence." " They are not," savs 

* Milton's " Second nefence.'' Though Prince Rupert's cavaliers were "all, all honorable 
men," yet during the civil war he bore the appellation of " the Prince of Plunderers," and it 
has been said with as much truth as wit, that lie " commanded the elixir of the blackguardism 
of three kingdoms." 

f They belonged principally to the sect called Independents. The flippancy with which 
some at the present day, and in this country, denounce the Independents as " intolerant fana- 
tics," deserves the rebuke of all men who celebrate the landing of the Pilgrims. Even Hume 
says, " Of all sects, this was the first which, during its prosperity as well as its ndversity, always 
adopted the principle of toleration." Clarendon, (B. X. of his G. R.,) speaking of the Inde- 
pendents in 1048 says, " Liberty of conscience was now become the great charter," and he 
declares that their clergy (in London) were ' more learned and rational' than ' the Presby- 
terian,' and that ' though they had not so great congregations of the common people,' yet they 
' infected and were followed by the most substantial and wealthy citizens, and by others of 
better condition.' Dr. Murdoch, in a note upon Mosheim says, ' The Independents uniformly 
pleaded for the free toleration of all sects holding the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.' 
' He (Charles I. in 1647) tried to gain over the Independents by promising them free toleration, 
hut they would not accept it fur themselves alone.' [What narrow-minded bigots ! The admirers of 
such liberal souls as Charles I., Archbishop Laud and Co., it is to be hoped will gradually learn 
to spread the mantle of Charity over the intolerance of men whose fame as pioneers in the 
cause of religious freedom is fast spreading through\lie world !] ' The army demanded free 
toleration for all Protestant' sects. When Cromwell cVme into power, ' nothing but the en- 
gagement for oath of allegiance to government) was required of any man to qualify him civilly 
lor any living in the country. Hence many Episcopal divines, as well as those of other do- 
nominations, became parish ministers.' To the calumny that 'the Independents sought to 
confound all distinctions in society, whether of rank or office, and aimed to bring about a com- 
munity of goods,' &c, it is perhaps enough to reply that when they had the sway in England, no 
such levelling system was introduced or desired. Notorious facts refute the charge. The alle- 
gation is manifestly the result of an attempt, on the part of hierarchs and monarchists, to set in 
an odious light the democratic and republican principles, ecclesiastical and political, for which 
the Independents, both of Old England and New England, were then distinguished. Those 
who read English History, need to exercise some discrimination. The people of this country 
know — or ought to know — whnt were the principles of the men from whom (according to He 
Tocqueville, Bancroft, and others, who have been at the pains to examine the subject) we have 
received our Democratic Republican Institutions. Some writers, like Rapin, (the French 
Refugee,) have been led into blunders almost ludicrous respecting the Independents, by trusting 
to the representations of the English and the Scotch Presbyterians, who could not forgive the 
Independents for foiling the attempt to make Presbyterianism the established religion of Eng- 
land. A few of Raoin 's mistakes are corrected by Dr. Murdoch, but not all As shedding light 
«n the attitude of the English and the Scotch Presbyterians towards the Independents, see 
Hetherington's Hist, of the Westminster Assembly and Dr. Bacon's Life of Baxter, prefixed to 
Baxter's Seiect Works. 



27 

he, "a hireling rout scraped together from the dregs of the people, 
but for the most part men of the better conditions in life, of families 
not disgraced, if not ennobled, of fortunes either ample or moderate ; 
and what if some among them are recommended by their poverty ? — 
for it was not the lust of ravage that brought them into the field ; it 
was the calamitous aspect of the times, which, in the most critical 
circumstances, and often amid the most disastrous turns of fortune, 
roused them to attempt the deliverance of their country from the fangs 
of despotism. Tney were men prepared, not only to debate but to 
fight ; not only to argue in the senate but to engage the enemy in tho 
field." The grand secret of their resistless might before which the 
gentry of England fled in terror or fell as grass at the touch of the 
mower's scythe, was their lofty and intelligent religious patriotism. 
It was the fear of a known God and the love of a country whose 
rights they had studied and comprehended and therefore wished to 
establish, that fired their souls and lent potency to their exertions in the 
hour of victorious conflict. Europe had never before seen nor has 
since beheld such an army. I need not stop to speali of the awful 
glories of Marston Moor, where opposing squadrons long since sur- 
named invincible, were made " as stubble to their swords," nor of the 
greater triumphs of Naseby, Dunbar and Worcester. Yet war 
was not their trade nor was it their great leader's vocation. Crom- 
well was not fond of war. The language of his lips and of his con- 
duct was, " Let us by decisive victories bring this civil war to a speedy 
close " He felt and his army felt that God had called them to battle 
for liberty of conscience and fur deliverance from political despotism. 
Hence, in the words of Macaulay, " he never fought a battle without 
gaining a victory. He never gained a victory without annihilating the 
force opposed to him. Yet his triumphs were not the highest glory of 
his military system. The respect which his troops paid to propertv, 
their attachment to the laws and religion of their country, their sub- 
mission to the civil power, their temperance, their intelligence, and 
their industry are without parallel. It was after the Restoration that 
the spirit which their great leader had infused into them, was most 
signally displayed. At the command of the established government, 
a government which had no means of enforcing obedience, fifty thou- 
sand soldiers, whose backs no enemy had ever seen either in domestic 
or in continental war, laid down their arms and retired into the mass 
of the people ; thenceforward to be distinguished only by superior 
diligence, sobriety, and regularity in the pursuits of peace, from the 
other members of the community which they had saved." To the 
very close of the struggle, which terminated in the death of the de- 
throned king, Cromwell was content to hold a subordinate rank in the 
military service of his country. He did indeed exert a paramount 
influence after the first two years of the war, and breathed the breath 
of new life and hope into the drooping cause of freedom. He was 
the originator of those great measures by which leaders, whose inde- 
cision and imbecility had almost blighted the hopes of the patriotic, 
were quietly removed from the command of the Parliamentarian 
forces, and by which troops baptised with the spirit of victory, were 



28 

brought into the field in place of the dispirited, the mercenary, and 
the ignorant. And he is justly regarded as having been the presiding, 
animating, and controling spirit in those great movements by which 
England was saved from the calamities incident to an unsuccessful 
attempt to subdue a tyrant. But his sway over that unequalled army, 
was due not to official station. It marked the ascendant of a superior 
genius, directed with consummate energy, wisdom and magnanimity to 
the attainment of ends which they, no less than he, held dear. He 
was certainly governed by no vulgar ambition. His speeches, his 
letters, and his actions, during the eventful and most trying period of 
which I am now speaking — the period which intervened between the 
victory at Marston Moor and the resignation of Sir Thomas Fairfax 
— evince the modesty, the self-devotion, and the patriotic ardor of a 
mind intent on the great work to which he felt himself summoned. 
And yet there has been, touching his conduct or rather his motives 
during this period, so much surmising of evil intent with so much dis- 
tortion of facts, that it is difficult for many readers to rid their minds 
of the impression that there must have been something dark and sinis- 
ter in his plans ; although when properly scanned, there remains no 
evidence that they were not conceived and carried into effect under 
the promptings of an enlightened patriotism. It is remarkable that 
he and those with whom he most strongly sympathised, were then de- 
nounced fir alleged reasons which entitle them to our admiration. 
The head and front of their offending consisted really in their unwil- 
lingness, after having conquered the king, to make any rash ireaty 
with him, by which all the fruitsof their victories would have been blast- 
ed and their lives and the great interests for which they had drawn the 
sword, put in imminent peril ; and in their adoption — far in advance 
of the spirit of the age — of the principle of "free toleration of all 
sects holding the fundamental doctrines of Christianity." • 

A little less than four years from the day (Aug. 22, 1642) on which 
the king set up his standard at Nottingham, the last of the royal gar- 
risons was surrendered to the Parliament and the civil war brought to 
a close. Charles was now with the Scots. With them he remained 
eight months, rather as a prisoner than as a sovereign. Both the 
Parliament and the Scottish commissioners offered him terms of re- 
conciliation, such as few conquerors, in a civil war, would grant to 
the vanquished. The friends of Charles besought him to accept of 
those terms as the best for himself and his partisans which he could 
reasonably expect. But he continued to act with characteristic in- 
sincerity and infatuation. He hoped by fanning into a flame the 
jealousy of the Scottish and English Presbyterians and the discontent 
of the Independents, and, thus dividing his enemies, to retrieve his 
fallen fortunes and exercise again all his former regal powers. He 
knew that the Presbyterians on the one hand were anxious to see their 
system extended over England as the only and divinely-authorized 
form of church government, to the exclusion not only of prelatical 
episcopacy, but of all the various sectarian forms which had sprung 
up since the reformation ; and that the Independents, on the other, 
were seeking a general toleration — a toleration not for themselves 



•29 

only but for all who held the sacred Scriptures to be the only rule of 
Christian faith and practice. Hence, in addressing himself to the 
Scots, he sought to alarm them by showing the probability that the 
Independents would secure a toleration in opposition to the provisions 
of the covenant, which aimed at the establishment of Presbyterian 
uniformity and the extirpation of heresy ; and he proposed that if 
Episcopacy might be continued in four of the dioceses of England, 
the Presbyterian discipline should be established in all the other parts 
of the kingdom, with the strictest enactments that could be devised 
against both papists and sectarians. At the same time, but more 
privately, he entered into a negotiation with the leaders of the army, 
They proposed to set him on the throne again, without insisting on 
his taking the covenant or renouncing the liturgy, if he would but 
secure the civil liberties of the nation and a general toleration in re- 
ligion. Seeking only to cajole and mislead bolh the Scots and the 
Independents, he imprudently failed to accept the proposals of eithen 
The Scots, after some negotiation with the English Parliament, find- 
ing that they could come to no agreement with Charles, and that no 
advantage and perhaps much hazard and loss would result from re- 
taining his person, surrendered him to the commissioners appointed by 
Parliament, by whom he was conducted to Holmby House, in North- 
amptonshire, the place selected for his residence, 

Meanwhile the Parliament which had previously abolished the Epis- 
copal hierarchy, manifested an increasing inclination towards a strict 
Presbyterian establishment, excluding all toleration of those who 
were styled the Sectaries. The dissatisfaction of the army of course 
became strong and open. They had been contending for religious 
liberty and seeking its maintenance as the right of all. In their 
view, the Revolution itself turned on no principle so important as 
this. They at length, therefore, came to the fixed resolution to be 
heard on this point, and that their opinions should be regarded in all 
tne measures which concerned their separate interests or that common 
religious liberty for which, more than for anything else, they had 
engaged in the war. To effect this object, they elected a council of 
officers and a body of adjutators or assistants, consisting of three or four 
from each regiment representing the common soldiers.* These two 
councils, representing the officers and the soldiers, held their separate 
sessions after the manner of the two houses of Parliament, and de- 
liberated freely upon the proposals and orders of Parliament, which 
related either to the disposal of the army or the settlement of the 
kingdom. All the elements of civil government in the nation were 
now in confusion. The king had been dethroned. His right to 
reign had been forfeited. Meanwhile, the Parliament now incapable 
of dissolution by any recognized law of the land, was fast losing, if 
it had not already lost the character of a representative body, and 
was becoming in the public estimation and in fact an irresponsible 

* See Dr. Bacon's Life of Baxter and Guizot's Hist, of the Eng. Rev. of 1640, pp. 342 and 375, 
The body of Adjutators, i. e., Assistants, fas the name imports) were to the council of officers 
what the House of Commons was to the House of Lords. Yet it is not uncommon to see them 
styled " agitators-,"'' as if it had been their vocation to " agitate, agitate,''' and produce all man- 
ner of confusion- 



so 

aftd usurping oligarchy. The house of Commons consisted of mem- 
bers who had held their seats for a period nearly four times as long 
as that for which our Congressional representatives of the popular 
branch held their offices. These facts should never be forgotten in 
Judging of the propriety of the measures to which the army resorted 
in order to maintain those rights which it was noble for them to ap- 
preciate and to assert. In such circumstances it is not strange that 
they should feel themselves justified in refusing to be disbanded or 
otherwise disposed of, until justice should be done to them not only as 
public creditors but as deliverers of their country, and the peace and 
liberty of the nation established on some basis which they could ap- 
prove.* Their resolution to this effect was formally communicated 
by a delegation to Parliament! But that party in the Parliament who 
were bent on the establishment of the strict uniformity of the Scottish 
Covenant, alarmed at what seemed to them the growth of heresy, im- 
piety and blasphemy, made haste to conclude a treaty with the king, 
fraught with loss and peril to themselves, and with oppression to the 
Independents and all others who dissented from the established Church. 
Happily, this treaty was not fully arranged, when a cornet, acting, 
as it is most reasonable to suppose, under the direction of the adjuta- 
tors, arrived at Holmby, at the head of fifty horse, and removed the 
king to the quarters of the army then at Newmarket. The king 
was treated, as authentic history informs us, with more consideration 
by the officers of the army than he had been by the commissioners of 
Parliament, and was now allowed a larger measure of personal liberty 
than he had enjoyed since he surrendered himself to the Scots. The 
Parliament and the city, on the reception of the news of a measure 
so bold and unexpected, were thrown into great perturbation. They 
apprehended the hostile advance of the army ; and preparations were 
hastily made for the defence of the city. A command was formally 
•<ent to the general forbidding the approach of the army. Fairfax, 
the commander, himself a Presbyterian, replied that they would ad* 
Vance no further without giving due notice; and to allay all reason- 
able apprehension, he assured Parliament that there was no design to 
overthrow the Presbyterian form of Church government or to set up 
the Independent-, and that the army claimed nothing more than a 
general toleration in religion or the right to dissent from the establ- 
ished Church. 

The subsequent approach of the army to the city, was occasioned 
by tumults among the citizens and violent petitions tending to subvert 
the freedom of Parliament as well as the religious and civil rights of 
no small portion of the nation. The speakers of the two houses, at- 
tended by a very considerable portion of the members, among whom 
were not a few zealous Presbyterians, had withdrawn from the city 
and claimed protection of the army that the Parliament might be 
saved from coercion. 

* " The sagacious Hume," though he somewhat exaggerates the disinclination of the Inde- 
pendents to a reconciliation with the king, says, " they adhered to that maxim which is in 
<ne main prudent and political, that whoever draws the sword against his sovereign, should throw 
away the scabbard." Whilst this maxim is prudent " in the main," the character of the sove- 
reign in this particular instance was certainly not such as to constitute an exception to its appli- 
eability* 



31 

The king came with the army to the city and was allowed to reside 
at his palace of Hampton Court. Here he appeared in great stale. 
Throngs of people from the city and covin try attended him. Had he 
{hen evinced any signs of relenting or even of decent regard for the 
rights and opinions of the nation, he might have regained his lost 
crown. Even Cromwell and Ireton conferred with him in private on 
the subject of restoring him to the throne, and their offers were better 
than those of the Parliament. It was at the risk of his popularity 
with *.he Ironsides, that Cromwell at this time was even suspected of a 
willingness to negotiate with a king who, by so many acts of tyranny 
and falsehood, had forfeited their confidence and his fight to govern. 
Yet there is no reason to doubt that the proposals of Cromwell and 
Ireton were made in good faith. It was prudent, as well as noble, 
fully to test the character of Charles before casting him off forever.* 
The old vices of that character were at this momentous crisis in the 
history of Charles, when he stood between a throne and a felon's 
block, fatally indulg d and strangely detected. He was hoping still 
to recover not only the throne but all the despotic powers which he 
had exercised in the palmiest days of his tyrannv, and was carrying 
on a deceitful negotiation with different parties in the realm when his 
duplicity and his hopes of power and revenge were brought to light 
in a letter to the Queen, which Cromwell, who had already begun to 
suspect his double dealing, intercepted. After saying in this letter 
that he Was courted alike by both factions, that he should join the one 
whose conditions should be most for his advantage, and that he thought 
he should rather treat with the Scottish Presbyterians than with the 
army, he added : " For the rest, I alone understand my position ; be 
quite easy as to the concessions which 1 may grant ; when the time 
comes, I shall very well know how to treat these rogues, and instead 
of a silken garter, I will fit them with a hempen halter. ,> ' f Surely 
Cromwell must have been insane, not to have abandoned all hope of 
a safe reconciliation with Charles. He, soon after, informed the most 
intimate attendant of the king that he would have no more to do with 

* Milton, in his Answer to Salmasius, says^~" Those things that in the beginning of the Wat 
He demanded of him when he had almost brought us undel 1 , which things if they were denied us, 
we could enjoy no liberty nor live in any ?afety ; those very thisgs we petitioned him for when 
he was our prisoner, in humble, submissive way, not once nor twice but thrice and oftener, and 
were as often denied. When we had now lost all hopes of the king's complying witli us, then 
was that noble order of Parliament made, that from that time forward there should no articles be 
sent to the king ; so that we left off applying ourselves to him, not from the time that he began to 
he a tyrant but from the time that we found him incurable.*' 

t Guizot's ling. Rev, of 1640, p. 315. Guizot refers to Clarendon, State Papers, II Appendix, 

xxxym. ' i > i f j 

Guizot's History, here and elsewhere referred to in this lecture, possesses many and great ex* 
i-ellencies. It is written with much ability and some candor. Yet to an American familiar with the 
history of the Puritan age and especially with the character of the Independents as developed in 
the planting of our religious, civil, and literary institutions, it must be obvious that Guizot, in 
some very important respects, has misconceived the religious spirit which entered so prominently 
into that revolution. He evidently considers the analogv between the English Revolution and 
the French to have been much closer than it really was. With all his candor, he sometimes styles 
man fanatics whom his own statement of facts proves to have been sagacious, clear-headed and 
liberal in their sentiments ; and he sometimes blames Cromwell and others for doing what his 
own narrative shows that they could not, without infatuation, have left undone. He fails to 
follow out his own facts to the only safe and logical conclusions. His facts prove that Charles 
was a tyrant incurably unprincipled, whom it would have been madness to trust. Candor doe* 
nor, therefore, require us to blame men for acting as they were necessitated to act.— 
There are some questions of such a nature that a middle ground is absurd. In a dispute as to 
whether two and two make four or make six, it is a false candour which takes middle ground and 
•ays, l< two and two make Jive." 



34 

a man so unworthy of his confidence and would be no longer re- 
sponsible, as he had been, for his personal safety. In doubt whither 
to go, the king fled from Hampton Court, and after a few hours " found 
himself, he hardly knew how, a prisoner in the Isle of Wight." * 
Hither came soon alter Commissioners from Parliament, presenting 
to him four propositions, to which his assent was required as the pre- 
liminary to any further negotiation. It was demanded that the com- 
mand of the sea and land forces should appertain for twenty years to 
Parliament, with power of continuation thereafter, if the safety of 
the kingdom should seem to require it ; that the king should revoke 
all his declarations, proclamations and other acts published against the 
House, imputing to it illegality and rebellion ; that he should annul 
all the patents of peerage he had granted since he left London ; and 
that Parliament should be empowered to adjourn for whatever time 
and to whatever place it should think proper. Though determined, 
from the first moment after hearing these propositions- — the conces- 
sion of which was so essential to the liberties of the nation— to reject 
them, Charles delayed giving an answer in view of making an ad- 
vantageous treaty with the Scots. "1 must wait," said he to an inti- 
mate attendant. "I will settle with the Scots before I leave the 
kingdom ; if they once saw me out of the hands of the army, they 
would double their demands." Negotiations, already opened when 
the king left Hampton Court, were now resumed in great secrecy 
with the Scottish Commissioners, and in two days a treaty was con- 
cluded. It promised the king the intervention of a Scottish army to 
re-establish him in full power over a people resolved no longer to 
bear his yoke, on condition that he would confirm the Presbyterian 
establishment for three years in England, himself and his friends not 
being required to conform to it ; and that at the end of that term, the 
assembly of divines should be consulted and he should definitely 
settle, in concert with Parliament, the constitution of the Church. 
Several stipulations to the advantage of Scotland and derogatory to 
the honor of England, were appended to this general concession. 
The king engaged moreover that to aid the Scottish army, the cava- 
liers all over the kingdom should rise in arms; that the Earl of 
Ormond should resume the command of the royalists in Ireland, and 
that he would himself, as soon as he should have rejected the four 
propositions of Parliament, escape from the island and proceed to 
Berwick or some other place on the borders of Scotland and wait for 
the moment of action. This treaty, which brought on what is termed 
the Second Civil War, was drawn up, signed and hidden in a garden 
in the island until it could be safely taken away. . His escape from the 

* It is perhaps due to myself and to the reader to say that, when this lecture was delivered, 
several paragraphs and parts of paragraphs between the 22d and the 34th pages were, for want 
of time, omitted. These paragraphs, then omitted or abridged, I ought perhaps to remark con- 
sist of details and descriptions having no connection with the points in the lecture which were 
misapprehended and mis-stated through the press. For the sake of distinctness, I would say 
that those mis-statements of my positions — so far as I deem them of much importance— relate 
to the following points. 1. The objections to Hume as a historian. 2 To what is said of Crom- 
well as " a praying man" — as if I had adduced that fact as the only or at least as the main 
proof of his having been sincere in his religious profession. :i. To what is said of the legal 
formalities in the trial of Charles I. — mis-stating me as asserting that he was tried in legal form, 
whereas my position was that there could be no form or prescribed mode under the English Con- 
stitution for the trial of a king. 



33 

island was unexpectedly prevented in consequence of the Parlia- 
mentary Commissioners refusing to receive his answer to their four 
propositions in a sealed envelop, and thus obliging him to make known, 
before their departure, his determination not to assent to them. When 
he had read aloud his message absolutely rejecting the propositions, 
the Commissioners of Parliament withdrew and aiter a short con- 
ference with the governor of the island, returned to London. The 
gates of the castle where the king was lodged were closed, entrance 
denied to all strangers, the guards everywhere doubled and neaily all 
his attendants ordered to leave the island forthwith. Parliament, 
justly indignant at the conduct of the king, now adopted by a very 
large majority the resolution to make him no more proposals and to 
settle the kingdom without him. Just betore the vote on this resolu- 
tion was taken, Cromwell arose and said : " Mr. Speaker, the king is 
a man of great sense — of great talents, but so full of dissimulation, 
so false, that there is no possibility of trusting him. While he is pro- 
testing his love for peace, he is treating underhand with the Scottish 
Commissioners to plunge the nation into another war. It is now ex- 
pected the Parliament should govern and defend the kingdom by their 
o\vn power and resolution, and not teach the people any longer to 
expect safety and government from an obstinate man whose heart 
God hath hardened ; the men who at the expense of their blood de- 
fended you from so many perils, will again defend you with the same 
courage and fidelity against all opposition. Teach them noi by 
neglecting your own and the kingdom's safety, in which their own is 
involved, to think themselves betrayed and left hereafter to the rage 
and malice of an irreconcilable enemy, whom they have subdued for 
your sake, lest despair teach them to seek their safety by some other 
means than adhering to you, who will not stick to yourselves. And 
how destructive such a resolution in them will be to you all, J tremble 
to think and leave you to judge." Words of counsel and warning so 
truthful and just as these, from a man whose patriotism had been fully 
proved and whose liberality extended toleration to all Christian sects, 
desered to be remembered and ever afterwards heeded by all who 
heard them. 

In accordance with the stipulations of the late treaty, the Scottish 
army invaded England, the Royalists, wherever they were sufficiently 
numerous to show themselves, rose in arms, and the calamities and 
perils of civil war again gloomed over the land. Whilst the army, 
commanded by Fairfax and Cromwell, was engaged in the task of 
repelling the common enemy and of suppressing insurrections, the 
party in Parliament, who were anxiously seeking to establish Presby- 
terian uniformity, deriving support and taking courage from the ap- 
proach of the invading Covenanters, introduced and after some delay 
carried the project of sending new proposals to the king. What had 
occurred within the last seven months to justify this recession from 
their former resolution ? Let the rekindled flames of civil strife, and 
the attempt by foreign force to subjugate English freemen, answer. 
Nothing had transpired to relievo the king in the slightest measure 
from the odium justly attaching to him for rejecting propositions of 



34 

peace, far better than he could reasonably have expected. On the 
contrary, everything which had occurred was fitted to deepen in the 
minds of all the discerning and patriotic the feeling of distrust and of 
indignation with which his dissimulation and treachery were before 
regarded. 

The friends of English liberty had now sufficient cause for alarm. 
They were in imminent danger of being given up as a peace-offering 
to an incensed and unrelenting sovereign, with whom it was amazing 
folly to expect permanent reconciliation, except on condition of un- 
qualified submission to his will. To what purpose, then, had they 
attempted the redress of the nation's grievances ? — to what end drawn 
the sword ? — for what advantage conquered the tyrant ? Was it 
merely to imbitter his despotic feelings, to arouse in him the fell 
spirit of revenge, and then, after witnessing for years his manifold 
acts of falsehood and treachery, to surrender themselves into his 
hands, victims to his offended and vengeful pride or slaves of his 
unlimited power ? Under the promptings of a false sympathy, or of 
a blind, stupid loyalty towards a fallen but incorrigible despot, were 
they to lay aside all prudence, all self-respect, and forget that " op- 
position to tyrants is obedience to God ?•" From very familiarity 
with the characteristics which unfitted him to govern and made him a 
dangerous public enemy, were they to treat him at length as self- 
destroyers tre it vice, — " first endure, then pity, then embrace 1 " 
And thus, after all their debates and remonstrances and prayers and 
sacrifices of treasure and blood, be, at last, content with obtaining " a 
piece of paper" inscribed with words and names written only to de- 
ceive 1 Thus inclined, they would have deserved lo be slaves! And 
yet, for not being thus inclined, they have sometimes bsen denounced 
as arrogant, implacable, and ambitious ! 

Great, however, as was their danger, they adopted no hasty mea- 
sure in self-defence. Cromwell, with a portion of the army, having 
quickly and easily crushed the insurrections in the western and 
southern parts of the kingdom, was advancing with rapid strides to 
meet and drive back the Scottish invaders. Fairfax, the commander- 
in-chief was prosecuting the wearisome siege of Colchester. To 
him came Ludlow — no creature of Cromwell — saying, " They are 
plotting to betray the cause for which so much blood has been shed. 
They will have peace at any price ; the king, being a prisoner, will 
not think himself bound by his promises. Even those who most urge 
negotiations, care little about making him fulfil them. To employ 
his name and authority to destroy the army, is their only aim. The 
army has achieved power ; it must make use of it to prevent its own 
ruin and that of the nation." Fairfax, admitting this, declared that, 
in case of need, he would be ready to employ the force at his disposal 
for the safety of the public cause. " But," said he, "I must be clear.'y 
and positively called upon to do so." Even Ireton, whom Cromwell 
had left with Fairfax, said to Ludlow, " The moment is not yet come ; 
we must let the negotiations go on and the peril become evident." 

Fifteen commissioners — nearly all desirous of peace — proceeded to 
the Isle of Wight to arrange the treaty, the proposals lor which the 



33 
i 

king had eagerly accepted. The negotiation had excited great ex- 
pectation. It was to lasi forty days, and twenty of the oldest servants 
of Chnrles. lords, divines, and lawyers, were to advise with him. In 
his communications with the commissioners, he seemed inclined to 
accept the propositions of Parliament, but in his heart he was far 
otherwise resolved. The Earl of Ormond was about to reappear in 
Ireland with money and ammunition which the court of France had 
promised him. He was, upon his arrival, to conclude a peace with 
the Roman Catholics and enter upon a vigorous war against this very 
Parliament with which Charles was now seemingly so willing to treat. 
"This new negotiation,"theKing wrote toSir WilliamHopkins,who was 
charged to arrange his flight, "will be derisive, like the rest; there 
is no change in my designs." * After much time had been spent, he 
consented to the demands of Parliament as to the command of the sea 
and land forces, the nomination to the great offices of state, as to th e 
cessation of hostilities in Ireland, even as to the lawfulness of the 
resistance which had issued in the civil war. " But," says Guizot, 
" instead of giving up at once and without hesitation, he disputed every 
inch of ground he could no longer defend ; sometimes himself ad- 
dressing different proposals to the House, sometimes seeking to elude 
his own concessions, pertinacious in asserting his right at the very 
moment he was giving it up, inexhaustible in subtleties and reticences, 
daily giving his adversaries some new reason to think that the hardest 
necessity was their only security against him.'''' 

Finally, after having solemnly promised that all hostilities in Ire- 
land should cease, he secretly wrote to Ormond, (Oct. 10,) " Obey, 
my wife's orders, not mine, until I shall let you know I am free from 
all restraint; nor trouble yourself about my concessions as to Ire- 
land, they will not lead to anything. 1 '' And the day on which he had 
consented to transfer to Parliament for twenty years the command of 
the army, (Oct. 9,) he wrote to Sir William Hopkins: " To tell you 
the truth, my great concession this morning was made only with a 
view to facilitate my approaching escape, wilhout that hope I should 
never have yielded in this manner. i[ I had refused, I could, with- 
out much sorrow, have returned to my prison ; but as it is, I own it 
would break my heart, for [ have done that which my escape alone can 
justify." 

Thus did Charles trifle with the sanctity of solemn engagements, 
and mock the selfish hopes of the very men who, to effect an unwor- 
thy end, had compromised their own safety and honor, together with 
the rights of a large part of the nation, in a rash attempt at an im- 
possible reconciliation.! Trusting in the awful sacredness appertain- 
ing, as he fancied, to his royal person, he dreamed not of his amena- 
bility to human justice, and seemed to dare injured humanity to touch 

* Aug. 1648. See Guizot's Eng. Rev. of 1640, pp. 414, '15, '16, '17. 

f We can afford to do justice to the conduct of those Presbyterians in the Parliament and in 
the city, who figured in these transactions. They were recreant to their own principles, in at- 
tempting to ally Presbyterianism to a monarchy. The Stuart family discerned far more 
clearly thin these Presbyterian Rcyalists did, the anti-monarchical genius of Presbyterianism. 
James I. early in his reign, said to certain Puritans who had petitioned for greater religious 
liberty — " You are aiming at a Scot's Presbytery, which agrees with monarchy as well as God 
Mid the devil." (Bancroft and Hume). Jfo Bishop, no Kin*, was one of bis favorite maxims- 



36 

a hair of his head. He did not mean to make good one of his con- 
cessions. He only sought to gain time, to increase, as much as he 
could, by false promises tind all the arts of perfidious negotiation, the 
unnatural discord among those who hid resisted his tyranny and driven 
him from the throne, to procure through the suicidal agency of a faction 
in Parliament, the disbanding of that noble army to which the nation 
was indebted for deliverance from threatened despotism, — to effect his 
escape, and then with a large, force trom Ireland, aided by the Royal- 
ists of England and Scotland, to render his power absolute. The cir- 
cumstances evincing this perfidy of Charles during the pending nego- 
tiation, were so glaring that even in the absence of the direct and 
certain evidence contained in documents hairing his signature, the 
members of Parliament mist blinded by unreasoning loyalty, or mis- 
led by false promises and unworthy motives, had little to say for his 
exculpat'on. 

Five times during the continuance of these efforts to form a 
treaty, the King's concessions, accompanied as they were by unmis- 
takable signs of insincerity and meditated treachery, were voted in- 
sufficient. Even the Royalist peace party in Parliament, shrank from 
a reconciliation on any terms which Charles would either propose or 
accept. And although, at thsir instance ani throigi their unwearied 
efforts, thi term of tti3 negrtiation \vi? tnrice prolonged, it " remain- 
ed," says Guizot, "motionless and futile, serving no purpose but to 

Hallam (sne his Co istitutinnat Hi t. of En* Cbio. X) qi ites fron* a letter of Charles I. to- 
the Queen andrflthers the following : "Siow in- any precedent wherever Presbyterian govern- 
ment andr^ar'Wj.s together Without p;rp;!tuil rebellions, wuciwk the cause that necessit ate J> 
th.e King my fat'mr, to shines tint govern iteilt in S;jtl in 1. Ant even in France, where they 
are hut on tolerance, which in likelihood 3D ill cau ;e in i.lar iti on, d.ii they ever at still so I .ng 
as they had power to rebel ' An J it can u >t be otliT.vise ; fo- fie rround of their dictrinr. is anti- 
monarchical." Ha lam derived this f om the Clarendon State Papjrs. " As for the |iarty caled* 
Presbyterian," says old ton, " of wh tin I hul.eve very 01 iny to hi gj id an:l f litliful Christiana 
though' misled by some of turbulent spirit, I wish the n earnestly mil calmly, not to fill olf front 
their lint principles, nor to affjet rigour and snp:norty over men [to wit, thj Indep indents, the 
Baptists, &c] not under them ; not to compel uuforcible things, in religion es ec.ally, which if 
not voluntary liecomes sin ; not to assist the clam iir an 1 inil.cious drfts of ma., whom they 
themselves have judged .o be the wtrstof men, t ie obdurate enem'osof Cod and bis Church. r 
* * * " Let them beware (of ) an old an I perfect enemy, wii >, though he hop? by sow ng 
discord to m ik:: them his in tr imonts, yet cannot f. irbeir, a minute, the ope i tlire iteniug of his 
destined revenga upon them when they have served his purposes. ' (Tenure of Kings and Ma- 
gistrate ). 

In his first great Defence of the People of Euglun I, or Answer to Silmisius, Miltin ad Ira-w- 
ed the following pertinent an I truly propheti i warn.n { 1 1 tiuu Presbyterian i w io so obstinately 
and suicidally adhered to the persecuting House itf Smart : — " W>e bj to yo x in t .e fir>t place 
if over Charles' poster.ty recover the crown of England; assure yours-lves yoi are like 
to be put in the black list. But pay y .nr vo.v • to '■} ij, ml love your brethren who h ivj delivered' 
you — who have p'evented t lat cal unity from falling upon you — who have saoed you from ineoi- 
table ruin, though against your wills." 

These misguided and misguidin; Presbyterian leaders of a faction in the city and in ths Par- 
liament, were no doubt strongly moved by the u reus n ible though very cumin in d :sire t > see 
a strict uniform t; obtaining in r.-spectto Church pol.ty a* well a* the doctroie; of rel gion ; 
and th j y deem :U it acrim nal neglect of doty to the ca use of trut i, not to enieiv ir 1 1 gritify 
this desi e. Hence, at l-astin part, their fa lure, at this in it important crisis, to follow out their 
own irinciple of toe right of private jidjimnt, t. wel .n:03 th; preaching o' the d ictrine of 
general toleration in religion, and to st an I sh iilder to shoulder w.th Croin .veil, Milton, Owen, 
and an im r •■using multitude throughout England whose w itchword was '■'Liberty of Conscience." 
In the eanier stages of th* Revolution iry struggle, th y had den mnced Charles as a tyran , :nd 
pr 'ache 1 from the tevt, " C ir.so yj Meroz, ' t • m ve m*n to ar.n ■ aj; i nit hon, and sp >k • „ and 
acted like true patriots j but after the victory of S neby, the r conduct f .r several year.* ev:n :ed 
an astonishing blindness to the. r own true position, a ii to the great principles, religious and po- 
litical, on which and on which alone they were jut fi nhle in lesisting and dethroning the 
King. It ought perhaps to be said in their b ha f that their sectarian error was a part of the ge- 
nerally received orthodoxy if the age, that they were in circumstances new in the world's his- 
tory, and peculiarly trying, — that the doclnue of general toleration in religion, though flowing- 



37 

display the impotent anxiety of the two parties, both obstinately 
blinding themselves to the necessity of the case." 

Whilst an infatuated faction was prosecuting these abortive at- 
tempts at peace, the friends of English liberty were engaged in the 
task, found not difficult, of extinguishing the rekindled flumes of civil 
war, and of clearing the land of her invaders. Victorious over the 
Duke of Hamilton, Cromwell entered Scotland without obstacle — the 
peasants of the western counties rising in a body at the first rumor of 
his victory, and each parish led by its minister, marching towards Ed- 
inburgh to drive thence the Royalists. In conjunction with the Earl 
of Argyle, the principal leader of the party opposed to Charles, he 
concluded a treaty with the Royalists, securing "to them full tran- 
quility and the enjoyment of their property, on condition of disband- 
ing their troops, abjuring any engagement in favor of the King, and 
renewing the oath 'to the holy league which ought never to have 
ceased between the two kingdoms.' " He was now received at Edin- 
burgh with great pomp — the committee of the states, the municipal 
body, " the ministers and people [who really feared God and loved their 
country], overwhelming him with daily visits, speeches, sermons and 
banquets."* 

Peace being thus restored, Cromwell, leaving a small force to main- 
tain order, proceeded with characteristic celerity to England, whither 
the patriotic portion of the Parliament and of the nation, alarmed at 
tho dangers which threatened the cause of liberty, had for several 
weeks been urging him to return. The Royalists, finding that the 
combination between the misguided portion of the citizens of London 
— with some small and contemptible bodies of insurgents in other 
parts of England — and a party in Scotland, was overcome and scat- 

dircctly from their own principle?, was exceedingly novel and startling, and that tha means of 
information by which the religious and political parties of the day might become acquainted 
wit'i each other's views, were very inadequate and limited. Nevertheless, they ought to have 
understood and maintained the;r owa and the natir.n's rights and true interest-, be ter. If their 
sincerity had b^en tempered with more wisdom und largene.-s of hear., they would have been 
spared the terrible trials to whicli they were subjected by t!ieir chosen rulers in the dar.< period 
which followed the Restoration ; and we should never have been taught to lament the misfor- 
tunes of the two thousand non-conformist m nisters, ejected and silenced, and left without the 
means of support, by " the Nell Gwinn defnder of the covenant," whom so many of them, 
after having experienced but failed to appreciate the liberality of Cromwell, welcomed so joy- 
ously to the throne. There was no good reason for their opposition to the Independents. The 
latter, even in the days of the Protectorate, neithsr assumed nor sought to assume dominion or 
superiority over their Presbyterian or oiher brethren, but simply ihe privilege of dis- 
senting. 

In our own country, Presbyterians and Independents — or Cong^egationalists, as they have 
usually been styled — have in general maintained not only great harmony of doctrinal views, but 
very considerable intimacy and cordiality of correspondence and co-operatiin — so much indeed 
that in some parts of the Union, few are aware of there being any difference between them, and 
nearly a:l k.iow them by the same name. The Congregationalism of New Kngland is, to a great 
extent, Presbytcriaaized Indspendency ; while the Presbyterianism of a large portion of our 
country, is so far C-mgre (rationalized that not a few, denominated Presbyt -rians, are strongly 
imbued with the spirit and principles of the men who acted with Cnrnwell, and Milton, and 
Owen, — of the men who founded the colonies of Plymouth, Boston, New Haven. 

* Guizot, p. 420. Guizot, I ought to say, uses the phrase "fanatic ministers and people," in 
the sentence quoted. I have translated the epithet " fanatic " into plain English, the term being 
employed here as it often is elsewhere in the wri'.ings of this author, to describe people who 
were gui'ty of studying the oracles of God, and of acting as it they truly believed them, and 
were enthusiastic enough to regard with deep and lively interest, things which the angels of 
light— the Cherubim—" desire tu look into"— (1 Pet., I. W : Ex., XXV. 20)— people who were 
not "juste nvlie 1" between oppressors and the oppressed — between eternal justice and rank out- 
rage — between God and the devil. 



38 

tered, had begun to act with the reckless energy of despair.* Misled 
by misinform itioi, terrified by threatened violence, or blinded by sec- 
tarian resentmant, a majority in Parliament finally manifested a de- 
termination to accept terms of peace with Charles, which they had 
repeatedly declared to be incompatible with the safety of the nation. 
It was when affairs in the city and in the Parliament were in this state 
of anarchical confusion, so dangerous to the liberties of England, that 
the army returnel to rem vistrafe against tde betrayal of the cause 
for which so m 13.1 blool hai been shed, and to interpose, if necessa- 
ry, in defence of their own and the nation's rights. A large number 
of the members of the Co nanus, who had participated in these trai- 
torous measures, wars expelled, and the house enabled truly to repre- 
sent the friends of freedom f 

The fifth act in the great drama of England's first grand demon- 
stration against regal tyranny and treachery, was about to open to the 
view of Christendom and the world, with a sublime and startling exhi- 
bition of the impartiality of justice, and a terribly distinct annuncia- 
tion to kings and hierarchs, of the superior Majesty of the People. 
Whilst experiencing lenity unparalleled and undeserved, and while 
professing a strong desire for peace, Charles had been repeatedly de- 
tected in gross acts of dissimulation and in machinations against the 
frienls of freedom, fraught with purposes of revenge and outrage, and 
already productive of asecrid civil war in which thousandshai been 
slain. Instead of feeling surprised that the deep-toned voice of right- 
eous indignation, had now begun to cone up, as the sound of many 
waters, not onlv from the army, but from the east and west, and north 
and south, demanding justice on the great delinquent as the sole author 
of so many calamities,! we may well exclaim in view of the past for- 

*"Tlie Riyalists," says Guizot, " losing all hope, now only thought of getting rid of, oraven - 
ging themselves on th ur enemies, no muter by what means; several republican mem'iers of 
Parliament were in ;ulted ami attacked in tile streets ; hints re iche J F lirf u e^en frj n Fran :e, 
that two cavalier-! h id re solved to assassinate him at St. Albms ; at Doneaster a puty of twen- 
ty man carried iflf R iinsbiroug'1, w 10 om nmie J there, an 1 three of them poniarded him at 
the moment he was endeavoring to escape from tliem (Oct. 29) ; there wis even a re,>ort tha. a 
plot was forming to murder eighty of the most iu.duen..ial members, as they left the house." 

f " Though fie King," says Milton, " did not agree to any thing that might conduce to the 
firm peace anl sett ementofth ngs, m >re than he hid before, they go and vote themselves satis- 
fied. Then th? soun ler pirt of the h rise, fining the n selves and thee >m n )n wealth betnyed, 
implore the aid of that valiant and alwiys faithful army to the comnonwealth. U,im which 
occasion, [can obser/e ooly this, which t am yet loth to u'ter, to wit, that our solUer.s unier- 
stood themselocs better than oar senators ; t'i-it they saoei Vie comnoiwealOi by their arms, when the 
others by their votes had alno.it raine.l it." (Answer to Svlinis us.) 

That the Repu'd can or pitriotic pirty were not inrl lenced by sectarian ze d, in these and sub- 
sequent proceedings, is evident from the very accusations of their enemies. Says Wilton to 
Salniasius — " Whereas you tax us with giving a 'toleration of all sects and heresies,' you ought not 
to find fault with us for that." The prominent man who wen 1 , to Scotland to urge Cromwell's re- 
tur i to save the betrayed cause of liberty, was the accomplished, witty and patriotic Henry 
Marten, so little suspected of piety, that though one of the King's judges, he was treated w.th 
comparative lenity in t le terrible days which followed the Restoration. Muaulay remarks that 
besi,le-tho Puritans who espoused the cause of liberty, m unly because it was the cans; of reli- 
gion, "there w is another pirty, by n > means numerous, but distinguished by learning and abili- 
ty, which co-operated with the.n on very different principles"— " those whom Cromwell was 
accustomed to call the Heathens, men who .vere in the phraseology of that time doubting Tho- 
mases or careless G illios with regard to religious subjects, but passionate worshippers of free- 
dom. Heated by the study of ancient liteiature, they set up their country as their id>l, an I pro- 
posed to themselves the heroes of Plutarch is their examples." Hume (in his Uth Essay) says 
that there were Deists associated with the Independents. 

X M'dton speaksof ''cal'ingto m ; nd,withhow unexpected an importunity and fervency of 
mind, and with hour unanimous a consent, the whole ar.ny, and a great part of the people from 



39 

bearance of the people, " Herein is the patience of ihe saints ! " The 
Commons passed an ordinance instituting a High Court to trv "Charles 
Stuart, King of England," as "a tyrant, traitor, murderer "and public 
enemy." This Court was to be composed of one hundred and fifty 
commissioners, including six peers, three high judges, eleven baronets, 
ten knights, six aldermen of London, select officers of the army, and 
members of the House of Commons, and thus representing the vari- 
ous classes and interests of the" nation.* By the sentence of this 
Court, after a public trial, Charles was beheaded in front of the pal- 
ace of Whitehall, and in the view of a great crowd of spectators, on 
the 30th of January, 1649.f 

A grave question here solicits our attention. Was this infliction of 
the p 5 nalty of death, justifiable 1 That it was— that Charles deserved 
thus to die, and that the principle of self-preservation demanded at the 
hands of the friends of English liberty, this act of justice, is, I think, 
manifest from what he had done, and from what he was still seeking 
to do4 5 



slmsst erery county in the kingdom, criei out with ons voice for justice against the Kin* as 
being the sole author of th 3 ir calamities." Guizot says that " numerous petitions were sent 
irom Yorkshire to the Commons, " demanding prompt justice upon the delinquents, whatever 
their rank or name." and that "at the same time, tne same demand was expressed by other coun- 
ties, t or some time, however, previous to the sxecution of Charles, certain peculiar causes 
had operated in London to mislead the populace them, and induce many to side for awhile 
W un tne dethroned King, who had formerly been most violent in their opposition to him. 

* The fact that some who were appointed to sit as members of this court, either neglected or 
refused to do so, only goes to support the idea, that the Commons intended to make it consul 
not merely of men who would be considered as enemies of Chailes— but of men of various 
shades and diversities of sentiment. 

t He had been brought to London on the 23d of Dec. The trial commenced on the 20th of 
January, and terminated on the 27th. 

J The principle that capital punishment should sometimes be inflicted, is assuvied in this diy 
Mission, as it may well be in view of Gen. 9: 6. Num. 35: 33—34. Acts 25: 10, 11. Rom. 13 
4. &.c. &c. 

That tyrants may rightful'y be resisted, dethroned, and even put to death, is a doctrine which 
had been extensively promulgated by some of the most distinguished of the Protestant reform- 
ers for more than a century prior to the execution of Charles I. Luther held in contempt the 
doctrine of passive obedience. Zwingle said—" I know not how it comes to pass that kings 
reign by succession, unless it be with consent of the whole people." " When by suiirage and con 
sent of the whole people, or the better part of them, a tyrant is deposed and put to death, God is 
the chief leader in that action." He attributed the fact that some nations suffered tyrants to reign 
over them without calling them to account for their crimes — not to ihe clemency or humanity 
of those nations— but to their Ukewarmness in upholding public justice." "Earthly princes," 
says Calvin, " depose themselves while they rise against God; yea, they are unworthy to be 
numbered among men. Rather it behoves us to spit upon their heads than to obey them." John 
Knox in a public discussion (1584,) maintained that "subjects might and ought to execute 
God's judgments upon their King— that Kings, if they offend, have no privilege to be exempted 
from tne punishments of law more than any otlier subjects. So that if the King be a murderer, 
adulterer, or idolator, he should suffer not as a King, but as an offender." Other -famous 
Scotch divines taught the same doctrine, and Milton convicts those in the land of Knox 
of palpable inconsistency, who denounced the execution of Charles as a violation of ihe divine 
law. The above quotations, and many others quite as apposite, may be found in Milton's 
Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. Al uding to those Scottish leaders in church and state, who 
condemned the execution of the Ki::g, Milto i says, (in his Second Defence,)— " On several 
occasions, in which the subject had been discussed in Parliament, they had unanimously 
agreed that the King might be deprived of his crown, for three principal reasons.'' &c. " The 
same persons, in the r answer to Gen. Cromwell, 1G53, confess that he was justly punished, but 
that there was an informality in the proceedings, because they had no share in the commission 
Which condemned him. This transaction, therefore, which was so atrocious without their 
participation, would nave been highly patriotic with it; as if the distinctions (f right and wrong, 
justice and injustice, depend on their arbitrary disposition or their capricious inclinations." 



40 

Undeniable facts showed him lo be as his sentence described him — 
a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public enemy. He had not aimed 
merely to retain unimpaired the prerogatives transmitted lo him by 
his predecessors. From the commencement of his reign to the close 
of his life — from the time when he mutilated the coronation oath that 
he might exclude from it the idea of deference to the popular will, to the 
hour of his exit on the scaffold, when he asserted that the people 
ought to have no share in the government, and insisted that upon this 
condition alone would the country regain peace and " liberty,'''' he had 
evinced a settled purpose to govern, unfettered by the needful re- 
straints of law, and unchecked by the known wishes of the nation.* 
This despotic purpose, had, you will observe, been formed and per- 
sisted in at a time when a new and a brighter era was dawning upon 
England ; when all the great interests of the nation required a curtail- 
ment of his prerogatives, already dangerous, and an adaptation of the 
government and laws to a higner standard of popular intelligence, 
morals, preparation for religious and political freedom, and i.dvance- 
ment in the sentiments and in the arts of a Christian civilization. 
Besides, in attempting to effect his nefarious purpose of changing the 
government into a despotism, and treading upon the necks of men 
deserving and needing a larger measure of liberty, he had been 
singularly perfidious and cruel. When for valuable consideration 
he had, in express terms, surrendered certain doubtful and dangerous 
prerogatives, he immediately proceeded, with shameless audacity, not 
only to exercise them, but to assume others still more doubtful and 
dangerous. He had sought out and brought to his aid the furious 
bigotry of Laud, and the terrible genius of Strafford, and collecting 
together as precedents for his wrong-doing examples of oppression 
and outrage, which had been scattered along several of the preceding 
reigns, he had practised iniquities and cruelties by which the nation, 
shocked and alarmed, was driven to take up arms in self-defence. He 
had exercised all his regal powers, andthe ethers despotically assumed, 
unmercifully and most unrighteously. He had violated the rights of 
conscience, robbed his subjects of their property, and in defiance of 
wholesome laws, and in contempt of his own repeated promises, pro- 
cured the deaths of many innocent persons whose blood was crying out 
against the murderer. And then, rather than forego his atrocious 
designs against the rightsof the people, he had taken up arms against 
them, and while putting all the great interests of the nation in peril, 
caused thousands to be slain. 

*He caused the phrase '' quas vulgus elegerit'' — which (laws or legal custom-*,) the common 
people shall choose — lo be erased from the coronation oath before he was crowned. Milton's 
Answer to Salinisius and Eng ish State Trials — vol. 1, p. 998. Just before he was beheaded, 
he said, " I must tell you that their [the people's,] liberty and freedom consists in their Anoint 
government, those laws by which their lives and their goods may be most their own. [Such 
" law-,'' for instance, as those by which he had piloned, ear-cropped, imprisoned, and put to 
death hu idreds of innocent persons, and levied ship-money, and wrung" forced Ions," &c. 
&c, from the people ] ''It is not," he said, " the r having a share in the government — that is 
nothing appertaining to them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things ; and there- 
fore, until you do that, I mean, that you put the people in that liberty, as I say, [i. e. in the 
" libeity '' of being governed without " having any share in the government," or of being 
under the unlimited control of an absolute monarch,] certainly they never will enjoy them- 
leloes." H.iw kind to the deir peoole ! He miy have been sincere in this, but it was the 
Bincerity of a mind darkened by a despot's intense selfishness The ab^ve quotation is made 
directly from t.tate Trials, vol. 1 p. 1043 See also Guizot's Eng. Rev., p. 454. 



41 

He was a convicted traitor and enemy to the State. Having " wil" 
fully broken the principal conditions made between him and the com- 
monwealth," and thus forfeited all right to govern, he had sought to sub- 
jugate the nation by exciting insurrections at home, and calling in 
invaders from abroad. He was an implacable public enemy. He had re- 
fused to make peace on any terms consistent with the safety of the 
nation; and when professing the strongest desire for reconciliation, he had 
been detected in writing confidential letters about fitting the friends 
of liberty with hempen halters instead of the silken garters which he 
was promising them, and about alliances and coalitions to subdue his 
rebellious subjects- He was, therefore, a traitor to his country — if 
not in the technical sense, )et in a sense which unperverted reason 
instantly recognises and approves.* After having ceased to be either 
actually or rightfully King, he had committed crimes against the State 
involving all that constitutes the essence and enormity of treason — 
his peculiar circumstances and pretensions serving now only to render 
him the more dangerous as a traitor and public enemy. Had any 
other person been guilty of like misdeeds — bringing upon the nation 
so many and so great calamities, what friend of justice would for a 
moment hesitate to say, he deserved to die. ? When a King, dethroned 
because by his tyranny and insincerity, he has made it the duty of the 
people to depose him, abuses their clemency, and proceeds with smooth 
words of peace on his lips, and with dark purposes of revenge and 
despotism in his heart, to show himself an implacable and perfidious 

•Milton after citing numerous legal maxims and examples, from which the great principle of 
regal responsibility gleams with a considerable degree of brightness, declares in the very spirit 
of our Declaration of Independence, that such a principle needs no proof, and says — '■ The 
thing itself is rifliculous and absurd In imaguip, that high treason may be committed against the 
King and nut against the People, for whose good, nay, and by whose leave, as 1 may say, the King 
is what he is.'' 

That Kings derive their authority from the People, and are responsible to them, was, as we 
have seen, the doctrine of eminent reformers and divines in Great Britain and on the continent. 
ThH words of Gilby, "that Kings have their authority of the people, who may upon occasion 
reassume it to themselves," expressed the prevailing sentiment of evangelical Protestants. 
Christopher Goidman, pastor of those English ''saints and confessors at Geneva," who fled 
from the ] ersecution of Queen Mary, said *• If princes do right and keep promise with you, then 
do you owe to them all humble obedience ; if not yo are discharged, and your study ought to 
be in this how ye max depose and punish according to law such rebels' against God and oppressors 
of their country." The phrase '• according to law." refers of course to the law of God, or the 
great princii les of justice, and not to any prescribed legal formalities. The nature of the case 
ordinarily forbids the existence of these. My object in referring to the opinions of distinguished 
writers who flouiished in the century closing with the age of Cromwell and Milton, is toexposo 
the insolent recklessness with which certain authors, v, ho i. light to be ashamed of such things, 
speak of the viuws and motives of the men who brought Charles Stuart to justice. Guizot tells 
us that the Commons in voting as " a principle that he had been guilty of treason in making 
war against theParliament.fwhcn the Parliament was a true exponent of the people's v. i'l,]-hnwed 
one of those strangebut invincible. scruples in which iniquity betrays itself while seeking airtig^tse.*' 
And Hallam ascribes to a low and sanguinary fanaticism, the sentiment that justice called for 
the punishment of Charles. It should be observed that according to the statements of both these 
authors, especially Guizot, he was unquestionably a tyrant, a murderer and an implacable public 
enemy. To say nothing of I other, Zw ingle, and others, at whose feet Hallam and Guizot might 
afford to«it for awhile to gain light on some very important topics relating to human rights — let 
me ask : Was Milton a fanatic? l!y reading his articlrs already referred to.logether w ith Crom- 
well's letteis relating to the punishment of Charles, and the remarks of Pradshaw. the Lord 
President, and of John Cook, Solicitor Genera in the t.-ial of the King, (see State Trials.) any , 
intelligent republican will perceive that the "Regicides" were men Who knew what they were 
about, and that they were familiar with certain great truths pert lining to the first priuci, l-'s of 
government, which arc not dreamr.t of in the shallow philosophy of certain distinguished mon- 
archies of the present day. Some of the greatest and best men of that asre, ai d the preceding 
taught that tyrants ought to be deposed, and if incorrigible and still dangerous, put to death — 
not, indeed, in the spirt of private revenge, but in obedience to the comprehensive and benev- 
olent principles of public justier. The question is not as to the proprieiy of capital punishment 
in general, but of capital punishment when inflicted on a tyrant, murderer, &c &c. 



4-4 

disturber of the peace and theshedder of the blood of thousands amid 
the renewed horrors of fierce civil strife, what republican will affirm 
that the tarnished crown which has fallen from his guilty head, ought 
now to be his defence against the unwakened sword of justice ]* Not 
only did justice demand the punishment of Charles Stuart, but the 
sajety of the cause of English liberty required it. 

All history — having any relation to the subject — demonstrates the 
hazard and peril of confiding in the promises of atyrant after forcibly 
resisting him. Milton gives in illustration of this truth, an example 
of cruel faithlessness exhibited in the preceding century by Christian 
II, the infamous tyrant of Denmark, whom a portion of his subjects, 
after opposing, trusted, at the cost of their own blood, soon pitilessly 
shed and thenceforth crying to heaven for vengeance on the head of 
the murderer who had now earned the surname of the Nero of the 
North. But proof of the utter madness of trusting Charles, it was 
needless to seek from foreign lands or from other times. His conduct 
had been so thoroughly characterised by insincerity and treachery, 
that not his enemies only, but his mo&t devoted followers, had been 
constrained at times to express their distrust. The Earl of Glamorgan, 
says Keightley, was " a Catholic, his personal friend and romanti- 
cally and devotedly loyal." Him Charles selected to " carry on a 
mysterious treaty with the insurgents " of Ireland — to induce them 
though they were stained with the blood of so many thousands of his 
Protestant subjects, treacherously and barbarously slain in the Great 
Massacre, to join hands with him in subduing the freemen of England. 
This dark game played in Ireland at the very moment when he was 
making fair promises to the different parties in England and Scotland, 
being not a little hazardous, he sealed the various instructions and 
commissions with the private signet, and left' blanks for the names of 
the Pope and other princes, to be filled out by the Earl, " to the end,' 7 
said Glamorgan, " the King might have a. starting hole to deny having 
given me such commissions if excepted against by his own subjects, 
leaving me as it were at stake who for his majesty's sake was willing 
to undergo it, trusting to his word alone?f Hear also the doomed 

♦Charles was not (as Hallam more than intimates,) a prisoner of war, in the 
ordinary acceptation of the phrase. An intelligent child can perceive a very impor- 
tant difference between the relation sustained by this dethroned King, to the English 
State or the exisiting authorities of the State, and that which would have heen sus- 
tained, for example, by a French or Spanish prisoner of war. The situation ot 
Charles was obviously such as to render him, in a different sense, lesponsible, and in a 
far more appalling degree dangerous to the English nation than any captured subject 
of France or Spain could have been. His case was evidently, in some very impor- 
tant respects, sui generis, and to be dealt with according to its own peculiar charac- 
teristics and exigencies, and on the great self-evident principles of retributive justice 
and self-preservation. There was truth in his exclamation at his trial — " Sir, I am 
not an ordinary prisoner." By his guilt, and by his capability of doing harm, as 
well as by the high station from which he had fallen, he was a very extraordinary 
prisoner. 

tThe bad apology sometimes made for the insincerity of Charles, is that it was 
exercised towards hi= rebellious subjects svho had overpowered him. But facts show 
that his duplicity was exercised towards his friends also— friends who were risking 
everything to aid him. Feeling some compunction for having permitted (in a pre- 
ceding note,) the claim set up for Charles— of '•' many private and domestic virtues"— 



43 

Strafford. Once had this great, bad man shone like a true star in the 
constellation of English patriots. But he had fallen — to shine there 
no more — smitten by the potent charm of despotism soliciting the 
ministry of his transcendent powers — changed from Wentworth the 
advocate of the Petition of Right, to Strafford the stern genius of 
absolutism. Of the King he had deserved all the gratitude which 
such a prince could feel for the able, cruel and unfaltering service of 
a wonderfully gifted subject. A traitor to the cause of freedom, he 
had exerted all his surpassing might to carry out his royal master's 
despotic designs, and had thus aroused throughout ihe three kingdoms 
a feeling of indignation which, at length, began to utter itself in the 
fearful cry of justice. "I cannot satisfy myself in honor or in con 
science, without assuring you — now in the midst of your troubles — that 
upon the word of a King, you shall not surfer in life, honor or for- 
tune," wrote the grateful Charles. The bill of attainder, passed by 
Parliament, is now suspended like a flaming sword over the head of 
Strafford. Shall it descend and destroy ? Is it not stayed up by a 
force as sure "as the word of a King" — unyielding as the bond 
which unites Charles to " honor and conscience ? " " If no less than 
his life can satisfy my peopl", I must say Jiat justitia /" declared 
the monarch who on other occasions so often braved public opinion, 
and so violently resisted the popular will — the monarch who professed 
to think Strafford innocent of all crime. Informed by Secretary 
Carleton that Charles has assented to the bill dooming him to death, 
he lays his hand on his heart, raising his eyes to heaven, and ex- 
claims : " Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, for 
in them there is no salvation. "f 

to pass without a direct denial, I beg leave here to adduce some evidence touching 
that point. " The King's manners," says Hallam, " were not good. He spoke 
and behaved to ladies with indelicacy in public. See Warburlon 1 s Notes on Claren- 
don, VII, p. fi2'J, and a passage in Milton's Defensio pro Populo Anglicano, quoted 
by Harris and Brodie. He once forgot himself so far as to cane the younger Sir 
Harry Vane for coming into a room at tlie palace, reserved for persons of higher 
rank. Carte's Ormond, I, p. 356, where other instances are mentioned by that 
friendly writer." Milton in the passage here referred to, pronounces it " impudent " 
to commend his chastity and propriety, and he states facts fully sustaining the de- 
claration. See Milton's Prose Works, v. II, p. 59. The " private virtues " of this 
monarch are certainly of too apocryphal a nature to neutralize the infamy of his great 
public crimes, or to diminish the abhorrence with which his tyranny, treachery and 
habitual duplicity deserve to be regarded. Yet 1 feel bound in charity to concede that 
viewed as standing in awe of t'l 3 Queen, and as suffering dethronement and death 
as the consequence of his misdeeds, he appears to the pitying eye of the gentle 
historical reader to have been far less indecent in his private deportment than Charles 
II and several others who have worn the English crown. In a former note Macau- 
lay, was referred to as declaring it absurd to say that Charles died a martyr 
to the Ciiurch of England. It might have been added that Charles on the scaffold 
(though he spoke with deep interest on various other topics, ) forgot to testify his regard 
for that Church — the very object for which he was suffering martyrdom " — until 
reminded by his faithful prompter, Bishop Juxon. When the grand object for which he 
was about to die, was thus happily brought to his mind, the " royal martyr" said, " I 
thank you heartily, my Lord, for that, / had almost forgotten it. See State Trials 
v I, p. 1043. 

tit is a poor excuse for this heartless and base act of the King to say lhat Strafford 
had attempted to absolve him from an inconvenient but acknovdeiJgedduty. Thisvery 
magnanimity of the man to whom he was under so many obligations only enhanced 
the infamy of surrendering him to what the King professed to regard as an illegal and 



44 

Thus had this faithless prince, more than once, extorted from devo- 
ted friends the complaint that even they could not trust him. Shall 
the men, then, who had dethroned him, and were holding him a prison- 
er, and who had ascertained that beneath all his smiles and professions 
of a determination to respect their rights, he was actually cherishing 
the purpose, as soon as it should be in his power, to hang them, be 
blamed for not confiding in him 1 — for their unwillingness to be pro- 
vided with hempen halters ? Let it not be said that the King, impris- 
oned, would not have been dangerous. For more than two years he 
had been able, though vanquished and in confinement, to keep the 
troubled sea of English factions in constant and perilous commotion, 
and for the last six months to turn upon it a new hurricane of civil and 
foreign strife. He was still straining every nerve, employing every 
artifice, drawing upon every resous-ce, whether of au'hority or per- 
suasion, or sympathy, to regain his lost power, and taste the joy 
of revenge. Imprisoned, however closely, any where within the 
British realm, he would have been the object towards which the eye 
of discontent of factious hope, and of credulous loyalty, dreaming of 
royal virtues, and weeping over royal sufferings, would have been 
ever ready to turn. Forth (rom the deepest recesses of his castle- 
prison would have gone Rumor with her hundred tongues, ever and 
anon filling the ears of the forgetful, fickle, thoughtless multitude 
with new tales of "his sacred majesty's" acts o*' piety, ond of his 
meekness and fortitude in bearing outrages inflicted in secret, and 
thus prepared the nation from time to time for a fresh baptism of blood.* 

unmerited punuhment, and that too with the additional injury of saying, "fat 
justitia ! " — let justice be done- The exclamation of the Earl, above quoted, certainly 
indicated his surprise and grief at the facility with which Charles had assented to 
his death. It may be said that the King afterwards repented of this act. He 
undoubtedly regretted it; but not until he began to see that it was impolitic. It has 
been well decided that " the blackness" of infamy contracted by this deed was only 
" burnt in " by " the paltry tears he is said to have shed " over it. 

Touching the duplicity of Charles, one thing deserves especial notice, to wit — the 
nature of the evidence by which it is proved: This consists of his own letters and 
documents bearing his signature, as well as of public and undeniable declarations 
and acts. Quotations might have been given from his letters, taken on the field ot 
Naseby, exhibiting his perfidy in negotiations and other transactions previous to 
June 1645. Indeed, only a small part of the facts certifying his insincerty have been 
orcouid be stated in the foregoing pages, though the unbiased reader may, with some 
propriety, make the complaint that proofs have been needlessly accumulated to 
establish so plain a point. My apology for dwelling at so great length upon the des- 
potic designs, the tyranny, and the treachery of Charles i3 that in this " great country " 
where sleep the signers of the Declaration of Independence, there are various .sorts 
of republicans — so that some, even of those claiming to be the special advocates of 
popular principles, are zealous to shed ink in defence of his " divine right " to tyranize 
over men with whom the noble and truly heroic founders of our free institutions, 
deeply sympathised, and seem to deem it evidence of a liberal, Christian spirit to 
speak of his '' rebellious subjects," and to denounce as "bloody" and "fanatical" 
t heir firm and courageous adherence to the principle then already sanctioned by the great 
and good, " Opposition to tyrants is obedience to God." It would not do to assume that 
the "martyr" King coulddo wrong; nor would it be safe to rely upon such evidence of 
his having in fact done wrong, as would establish the guilt of any other man. 

*Those who assert that the execution of Charles could "alone render him danger- 
out " and that it w^9 " an iniiscreet exhibition of pirty spirit," seem strangely to lose 
sight of the notorious facts of the case. Notwithstanding all the exasperation pre- 
ceding and attending the first civil war, he was treated with remarkable lenity by his 
conquerors for mare than two years. It was not until he had been detected in the 



45 

It his often been said thtt the execution was injurious to the cause 
of liberty by exciting unJeserved commiseration for the tyrant. To 
this I reply that his close confinement for many years would have 
had a similar effect, and though perhaps less intense for the moment, 
yet evidently far more permanent and dangerous, f The proneness 

grossest acts of duplicity and treacherous hostility, and had— in circumstances of 
peculiar perfidy, while engaged in a negotiation of peace — planned and instigated 
the second civil war — it was not until then that the resolution — sanctioned by justice 
and now called for by safety — was taken to biing the great offender to the block. 
Then a great multitude in Yorkshire, and nearly all the counties of England, (now 
relieved the second time from the storm of civil strife,) and the army (just returned 
from the bloody ta3k of delivering the country from insurrection and invasion,) sent 
in their petitions for justice upon the author of so many calamities, and the leading 
patriots began to entertain and to express the conviction that the cause of liberty 
required them to treat the prime disturber of the public peace according to his crimes. 
Then the men whose forbearance had been disastrously abused, felt constrained — not 
from the desire of revenge, but from a regard to the peace and rights of the nation — 
to appeal to the gieit principles of even-handed justice and of self-preservation. 
They declared " that it was high time to settle some form of government under 
which the nation was to live ; that there had been much treasure and blood spent to 
recover the liberty of the people which would be to no purpose if there were not 
provision made for their secure enjoyingit ; and that there would be "always the same 
attempts made which had been of late to disturb and to destroy th« public peace, if 
there were not such exemplary penalties inflicted as might, terrify all 7iien, of what 
condition soever from entering upon such undertakings " — " that they ought to begin 
with him who had been the cause of all the miseries and mischiefs which had bejallen 
the kingdom " — "that thiy had aheady declared, and the House of Peers hadcovcurred 
with thetriy that the King had been the cause of all the blood which hadb.en spilt, and 
therefore, that it was fit that such a man of bf«>od should be brought to justice, that he 
might undergo the penalty that ivas due to his tyranny and murders ; that the people 
expected this at their hands, and that having the principal malefactor in their power,, 
he might not escape the punish;nent that was due to him." Clarendon's G. R. — B. 
XI. It is preposterous to represent the deadly and irreconcilable struggle between 
despotism and liberty — between Charles ana his conquerors, as a common party 
strife. The tremendous realities of that struggle — the blood of thousands crying from 
so many battle fields — the threatened " hempen halters " — the "incurable distimu- 
lation," and the unrelenting purpose of Charles, illustrated by the evils of a second 
war, cannot be made to go out in so smooth a phrase as " great social schism." 

In regard to the effect of putting the giett delinquent to deaih, let it be observed 
that England, though swept by the torn t.d i of bloody civil commotion, during the 
six months preceding his execution, was unusually free from dangerous tumults for 
several years afterwards. Even in 1651, when Charles II ii Tided England With an 
army from Scotland, fewer Englishmen joined his standard thnn had joined thestand- 
ard of the Duke of Hamilton in his invasion a few months before the great act of 
justice. As illustrating the effect upon the public mind of keeping the deposed King 
in confinement, the influence of the book already referred to, under the title of Eikon 
Basilike, deserves mention. This book falsely purporting to have been wiitten by 
the "royal martyr" during his captivity, and to be "a portrnrure of his sacred 
majesty in his solitudes and sufferings ," had for a time a wonderful influence on many 
minds; and itseffect (due mainly to its pathetic and imposing desciiption of his pre- 
tended secret piety, and meekness in the endurance of injuiies,) shows that his 
continued confinement, by furnishing occasion for appeals to popular credulity and 
sympathy, would have been productive of anything but peace and a settled stale of 
the public mind. Hume rather unwittingly concedes that while Charles lived the 
projected commonwealth could never be secure. The argument of Macaulay, that 
he was no longer dangerous because by deceiving all the different parties, he had 
forfeited their confidence — is really wi:hout any force, being in contradiction to unde- 
niable facts. Charles deserved to lose the confidence of all men. and did, as we have 
seen, lose the confidence of some even of his own party. But there were those who 
with a stupidity, reminding us of the mad devotion of the heathen to their it'o's, were 
disposed to trust him. And there were others who (if they did not trust him) wished 
to use him to promote their factious purposes. 

tlreton, Hirrisan and other patriotic leadera said " they could as easily bring him 
to justice in the sight of the sun as depose him ; since the authority of the Parliament 



w 

of the popular mind — after rising in strong and just indignation 
against oppressive rulers — to compassionate their sufferings as soon 
as ihey are made to feel the righteous consequences of their crimes, 
has often proved a serious obstacle to the emancipation of down- 
trodden nations ;* nor was it heedlessly overlooked by those who in 
the providence of God were called upon to dispose of the fallen 
oppressor of England. The course which they adopted, was, as it 
regarded him, just ; and as it regarded the peace and welfare of the 
nation, the safest and best. To have restored him to the throne would 
have been self-destruction. To have kept him imprisoned would 
have made him a constant subject of agitating suspicion, sympathy and 
complaint ; and his name the perpetual sanction and watchword of 
conspiracy, insurrection and civil war. Environed, as they were, 
with perils and stern exigencies, they had only a choice of dangers. 
Justice to the highest as well as to the lowest, became their motto; and 
while seeming to choose the most dangerous course, they really took the 
safest — a course marked with admirable boldness, magnanimity and 
decision ; evincing in the actors a lofty consciousness of following the. 

co aid do the one as well as the other; that their precedent of deposing had no 
reputation with the people, but was looked upon as the effect of some potent faction 
which always oppressed the people more after than they had been before. Besides 
those deposings had always been attended with assassinations and murders which were 
the more odious and detested, because no body owned and avi wed the bloody actions 
they had done. But if he were brought to a public trial for the notorious ill things he 
had done, and for his misgovernmenl, upon the complaint of the people, the superiority of 
the people would he hereby vindicated and made manifest " — and such an exemplary 
proceeding and execution as this, where every circumstance should be clear and 
notorious, would be the best foundation and security of the government they intended to 
establish, and no man would be ambitious to succeed him and be a King in his place, 
when he saw in what manner he must be accountable to the people." Clarendon's G. 
R. — B. XI. It has sometimes been said that nothing was gained by the death of 
Charles I, inasmuch as upon that event, his son, Charles II, was (according to lormer 
usages,) King. But those who argue thus, seem t. forget that Charles if— after the 
execution of his father — was unable for eleven years to get any foothold in England, 
and was invested by the popular imagination with very little of that sacredness which 
had bo long shielded the " royal martyr." Nothing but the inefficiency of Richard 
Cromwell, and the dread (after his resignation,) of anarchy and civil war, caused the 
nation in general to welcome Charles II te the throne as they did. 

*It need not surprise us that a portion of the Londoners who had formerly denounced 
Charles as a tyrant and murderer, and prayed the Lord to take him away, set up a 
dismal ululation when their prayer was answered. Nor ought we to wonder if there 
were those svho overlooking his crimes and regarding him with a superstitious venera- 
tion after his " misfortunes " overtook him, breathed a spirit of revenge towards those 
who had brought him to justice and delivered the nation from his tyranny. Such 
folly is not altogether without parallel. To say nothing of the lar more excusable 
wrath of the Roman rabble moved by Antony's oration at the funeral of Caesar, 
to cry "seek — burn — fire — kill— slay, "there is a most staking illustration of vitiated 
sympathy and perverse veneration mentioned by Suetonius in his life of Nero. 
According to the historian there were those who praised this tyrant after he was dead ; 
who would have rejoiced at his return to life ; who for a long time adorned his sepul- 
chre with vernal and summer Jtowers, and declared that great evils would soon befaU his 
enemies — Sec. 57. This passage is quoted in Murphy's Tacitus and in Milton's Prose 
Works, v. II p, 81. Pity when directed to deserving objects or kept within due 
bounds, is certainly very becoming and praiseworthy. But when it stifles common 
sense, tramples upon public justice, groans dismally at the punishment of tyrants and 
forgets the wrongs endured by their victims — when it garlands the sepulchres of 
the Neros, and is ready to turn and rend the patriots who have nobly, but perhaps 
imprudently, cast the pearls of liberty before their countrymen, it is anything but a 
viitue. 



47 

right, and, in the broad sunlight of public observation, elevated in a 
rermrkable degree above the reach of dark suspicion and odious 
misconstruction and thus made defensible before the world on its true 
merits.* 



•Not a few Royalists in spite of the absurd dogma that " the King can do no 
wrong," and the mighty cloud of monarchical and superstitious illusions which to 
them has greatly obscured the moral glory of this truly heroic measure — regard it 
with more of admiration than of horror. "Itnnybe doubted, "says that distinguished 
orator and statesman, Charles James Fox, " whether this singular proceeding has not 
as much as any other circumstance, served to raise the character of the English 
nation in the opinion of Europe in general. He who has read, and still more he who 
has heard in conversation, discussions upon this subject by foreigners, must have 
perceived that even in the minds of those who condemn the act, the impression made 
by it has been far more that of respect and admiration than of disgust and horror." 
History of James II. Yet this impression, mentioned by Mr. Fox, has been produced 
under the disadvantage of a most unfair representation of the transaction. Having 
recently, with considerable care, read, in the English State Trials, the full report of the 
doings of the court which sat in judgment on Charles, I feel constrained to say that 
the trial was conducted with a dignity, solemnity, and forbearance, which stand in 
striking contrast to the indecorum, levity and rudeness, so generally and so falsely 
attributed to that court. The judges did not, indeed, forget that they were mem and 
that u the royal martyr " was mo more than a man, and they dared to act accordingly. 
But this is|the very thing for which they deserve especial praise. Honor to the men who 
in such an age, presumed to assert and to maintain the superior Majesty of the People ! 
The description which has ordinarily been given of the proceedings and circumstan- 
ces of that trial, might well excite the indignation of any well informed and candid 
man. In it are to be found scarcely any ot the real features of moral grandeur which 
claim the historian's particular notice ; whilst the calumnies and false colorings 
gathered from that foul collection of lying and erroneous testimony given twelve 
years afterwards at "the trials of Twenty NineRegicides," and from books likeCarrion 
Heath's Flagellum are wrought into a picture in which the absurd, the ludicrous, and 
the horrible seem to be struggling for the chief prominence. The great principles on 
which the judges really and avowedly proceeded are either unnoticed or burlesqued. 
The insolent and contemptous demeanor of the " extraordinary prisoner " is either 
softened or justified, and even praised ; and the conduct of the guards is grossly 
misrepresented. The self-destroyed testimony of that weak, forgetful man, Col. 
Downes, labouring to save his neck by blaming " the late usurper," is raked up to 
fasten upon Cromwell the charge of rudeness and violence. And the story of Crom- 
well's marking the face of Marten with a pen, and of Marten's doing the same to 
Cromwell on the occasion of signing the order for the execution, is related with as 
much confidence as if it rested on the most reliable authority. This tale depends 
solely on the credibility of a single witness, who testified twelve years afterwards under 
a strong temptation to do service to a restored dynasty by blackening the character 
of Cromwell and his associates. This witness was one Ewer, who had been a waiter 
of Marten, and was anxious (like some others) to free himself from suspicion of dis- 
loyalty by turning against his late friends. Forster, though a spiteful defamer of Crom- 
well, very justly doubts the truth of the story. He says : " If the occurrence 
really took place, it is yet unworthy of such a philosophical historian r.s Hume to 
quote it as an evidence of barbarous or " rustic" buffoonery. No doubt if Marten 
and Cromwell did this, they did it as a desperate momentary relief from over-excited 
nerves, and because they felt more acutely than their more sober brethren the dark 
duty they were engaged in. Such " toys of desperation " commonly bubble up from 
a deep flowing stream below. Downes, a weak man, is said to have been obliged to 
go out into the speaker's chamber " to ease his heart with tears." Marten and 
Cromwell were not weak men, and it was not in tears at such a time as this that they 
could have eased their hearts." Permit me to add (while rejecting this story as un- 
worthy of credit,) that the view here presented of the manner in which deep feeling 
sometimes manifests itself, is sustained by facts in the history of some of the most 
noble characters that have ever shone on occasions of peculiar danger or responsi- 
bility. The playfulness of Luther in many an " awful and rugged crisis " was to 
some minds very strange, and even excited doubts of his earnestness. But it was 
really the momentary flashing of light trom the deep thundercloud of care. It was 
a resting at the foot of the mount from whose top, bathe J in awful splendors, he had 
ju3t discsndeJ, and to which he was preparing, with renewed vigor, to return. Some 
of oar fathers on the occasion of " pledging thjir" lives, their fortunes, and their 



48 

But some may be ready !o ask, " Were not the forms of law dis- 
regarded ? — had not many of the members of the House of Com- 
mons been expelled before the organization of the court which tried 
the King ? " 

Those who urge this objection need to consider that, at this time 
there was no settled form of government in England. For more than 
eight years the nation had been in a state of strife, of civil war, of 
revolution. Old things were passing away and new things had not 
yet assumed permanent form and order, inasmuch as a revolution 
in a government supposes, of necessity, the setting aside of? at least, 
some of its prescribed forms and usages, the proper question 
as to the conduct of the actors on such an occasion, is not 
whether they were scrupulously observant of fugiliv.: formulas, but 
whether they conformed to the settled principles of justice, natural 
and revealed, and tothe dictates of enlightened benevolence and sound 
policy. It is thus that the past revolutionary proceedings of the 
Commons themselves are to be judged. In defiance of the King's 
repeated declaration that the Parliament was dissolved and devoid of 
any rightful authority nod in disregard of former prescriptions of 
the constitution, this House of Commons, without re-election, had 
continued to exercise extraordinary powers during a period of un- 
precedented length. But does this necessarily imply that the Com- 
mons had been guilty of wrong ? Certainly not. If for the sake of 
an end justifying revolution, if for the sake of interests protected by 
principles older and more authoritative than kinglv prerogatives and 

sacred honor," in a struggle with the mightiest nation on earth, were playful — Frank- 
lin and Harrison especially. The greatest of dramatists has often been most unphil- 
osophically criticised for mingling the comic with the tragic; for putting into the 
moutl ■ ot persons of deep feeling and sublime courage and earnestness when acting in 
scenes of peril or of appalling responsibility, those mirthful expiessions in which it 
was natural for such minds to unbend in momentary diversion. Guizjt's account of 
the trial and execution of Charles, is the part of his book which is tne least worthy 
of M3 candour or of hisabi.ities. He seems incapable of appreciating the character 
and motives of those high-souled. earnest, God-fea iig Englishmen who 
" Upon' the neck of crowned Fortune proud 
Did rear. God's trophias " — 
Among other impertinencies,he commits ths following. "The body of the King,"hesay9, 
"was alreadyenclosedin the coffin when Cromwell desired to see it; he looked at it 
attentively, and rai-ingthe head as if to make sure that it wis indeed severed Jrom the 
body : " " This," said he, " was a well constituted frame and which promised a long 
life." Now can any man in his sober senses really think that Cromwell had any 
doubt whether Chailes was act 'willy dead, or whether his head had in fact been severed 
from thebody ? A great multitude had witnessed the execution. On the supposition 
that Cromwell was free from all malice towards Charles, and entirely unconscious of 
any sinister motive or ciiminal design in respect to his death, it h easy to see 
how he might thus have gone and calmly .gazed upon the face ot the dead and made 
the quiet and very natural remark which is here asciibed to him. But on the 
hypothetic that he had ambitiously and murderously compassed the King's death, fer 
the sake of clearing his own way to supreme power, and that the thought was on his 
mind 

" Had nature been his executioner 

He would have outlived me" 
this proceeding must be regarded as incredibly strange. What ! the conscious mur- 
derer going ot his own accord to gaze — to gaze calmly — upon the rebuking face of 
the mw&red— the wily, deep-plotting aspirant standing there to babble before wit- 
nesses, thoughts which he would have been anxious to cover with a pall dark as " the 
durn 'st smoke of hell ! " Not charity only but common sense requites us to adopt 
thefo.mer supposition of conscious innocence. 



49 

constitutional precedents, they disregarded time-honored formulas, 
they are to be justified, for the reason, that they obeyed a law higher 
than any which they transgressed — a law of such majesty and force 
indeed that in opposition to it there can be no law. So far as they 
proceeded in obedience to the great principle which warrants an op- 
pressed nation in changing its government, they were loyal to an 
authority ancient as the day when the Creator said, " Let us make 
Man in our image." 

Those members of the House of Commons who lost their seats 
by "Pride's purge" had swerved from obedience to this high author- 
ity, and thus abandoned the only ground on which it had been right 
and praiseworthy for them to resist and dethrone the King, and to 
persist, so long, in the exercise of such extraoidinary Parliamentary 
powers. In no circumstances would they have been warranted in 
sacrificing Cromwell and his associates on the altar of an iniquitous 
and impolitic reconciliation with the fallen tyrant. In no case would 
it have been otherwise than infamous, to pluck down ruin upon the 
heads of the men who, in obedience to the loud call of duty, and 
under the plighted faith of Parliament itself, had jeoparded their 
lives and fortunes in defence of lhe nation's liberties. Hut the 
factious clique, expelled in that purgation, had not even the poor 
semblance of authority which a recent election and a clear majority 
in a full House, might have lent to the perpetration of such an outrage. 
They had now been sitting so long without re-election that their 
representative character was exceedingly dubious, and nothing but 
the unsettled state of the government and tne exigencies of the cause 
of liberty could justify their exercise of Parliamentary powers at all. 
To exercise them for any other end than the maintenance of the just 
liberties of the whole people, or any longer than the safety of the 
nation required, was manifest usurpation. Yet in these circumstances 
when not a few of the original patriots and master spirits of the 
House had ceased from their labors, and when great changes in favor 
of liberal principles had occurred and were still occurring in nearly 
all the counties of England, and exciting the selfish fears of Royalists 
and sectarian exclusion ists, they had prostituted those powers to the 
furtherance of designs subversive of the liberty of conscience and 
of the civil rights of the people. Taking advantage of the acci- 
dental occurrence of a temporary majority, they had sought to pre- 
cipitate measures marked with ingratitude and hostility to Cromwell 
and the army, oppressive and dangerous to a large part of the nation 
and likely to prove disastrous even to themselves. Aiming at an end 
so unpatriotic, so selfish, and withal menacing ruin to themselves as 
well as others, they had forfeited all right to be the arbiters of a great 
nation's religious and political affairs in so momentous a crisis. They 
were either leaders or instruments of a faction whose intolerance, 
suicidal resentment and grasping selfishness, it was the duty of the 
friends of civil and religious liberty to resist for the same reason that 
they had resisted the despotic measures of Charles Stuart himself.* 

"■Let it be kept in mind that the great offence of Cromwell, and those who acted with 



50 

For their dangerous usurpation they deserved, and the public safety 
demanded, their expulsion. And as those whose dut) r it was, in the 
first place, were unprepared to expel them, it became the duty of those 
whose dearest interests and lights were suspended on the act, to per- 
form the office.* 

But to what purpose is so much stress laid upon this objection to 
the trial of the King ? " It was," some affirm, " contrary to the 
forms of the constitution to try him thus} " just as if there had been 
in England from olden times a recognised law of the land providing 
for the trial and punishment of monarchs, and specifying the judica- 
ture and prescribing the process in such cases ! The haughty Tudors 
and the base and cruel Stuarts had been far less anxious to introduce 
such a law than to give currency and force to the maxim that the King 
can do no wrong. There was no statute or constitutional precedent 
conferring upon either house or both houses of Parliament, or upon 
any existing court, authority to try the King. Charles could be 
called to account for his crimes on none but the great principle 
which had justified and demanded his deposal, the principle — lying 
back of the English constitution — which sanctions the sovereignty of 
the People and requires that, when governments become destructive 
of the ends for which they were instituted, they shall be altered or 
abolished by those to whom God, in his providence, has given the 
power. 

him, was that instead of favoring the plan of setting up a new system of sectarian delusiveness 
they had adopted the principle of liberty of conscience and general toleration. Hence the at- 
tempt to sacrifice them as factious disturbers ! Some who ought to know better, have styled 
the great and noble party which embraced Cromwell, Milton, Marten, Owen and other uis- 
tinguished advocates of equal, religious and civil rights, a faction. What is meant by the term 
faction? It is often applied by monarchists and bigots, to those who least deserve the name, 
" By a faction," says Mr. Madison, "I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting 
to a majority or minority of the whole who are united and actuated by some common impulse 
of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of otlcer citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate 
interests of the community." Any combination of citizens, then, whether many or few, to 
acquire or retain special privileges by trampling upon the rights and abridging the just liberties 
of others, is a faction. Accordingly Robert Hall (though not always consistent in his use of 
the term,) says in reference to the two great political parties of England : " Every Tory up- 
holds a faction; every Whig, so far as he is sincere and well-informed, is a friend of the equal 
liberties of mankind." No other party, whether religious or political, in England in the age of 
Cromwell, was at so great a remove from the real character of a faction as that of which Hume 
says : " Of all christian sects this was the first which during its prosperity as well as its 
adversity, always adopted the principle of toleration, and more ardent in the pursuit of liberty 
aspired to a total abolition of the monarchy and even of the aristocracy, and projected an entire 
equality of rank and order in a republic, quite free and independent." 

*" The military usurpation " by which the House of Commons was purged, was preceded 
and made necessary by the treacherous and alarming usurpation of certain factious members of 
Parliament, urged on by the violence of a gang of royalist desperadoes and of a clique of 
offended exclusion ists, whose chief force at this time was in the city of London. After the 
expenditure of so much blood and treasure— after a struggle of eight years crowned with such 
decisive victories over the forces of despotism and exclusiveness, was it the duty of Cromwel 1 
and others having the power to prevent such a catastrophe, to suffer themselves to be immo- 
lated as victims to the wickedness and the rash bigotry of a faction, and permit all for which 
they had argued and battled, to be lost through non-resistance to lawless violence ? The 
principle of submission to the powers that be did not require it. The principle of abstinence 
from privat* revenge and personal hostility did not require it. Neither of these principles was 
applicable to the case of men acting in a public capacity, and having the power and providentially 
occupying a fitting position, to prevent the occurrence of so great an evil and so manifest 
a wrong. Those who love to contrast the acts of Cromwell with those of our venerated 
Washington, ought to be candid enough to contrast also the exceedingly different circumstances 
in which the two men acted. How different th<s spirit of the two ages, the nature of the 
obstacles to be encountered, the character of the two nations and the position of the two 
countries. If it is true that there has been but one Washington, so is it, that there has been 
but one nation worthy of the services of a Washington. 



51 

Charles himself when denying the jurisdiction of the court by 
which he was tried, did not found his denial mainly — if indeed he can 
be said to have done it all — on the fact that the House of Commons 
was not full. Had every member been in his seat and voted for the 
organization of the court, his grand objection would not have been 
obviated in the least. He denied that there was or that there could 
be any Parliament without the concurrence of the King, and insisted 
that there was no tribunal on earth competent to try him as a delin- 
quent.* Let it be observed moreover that Charles had no right to 
any advantage resulting directly from his own wrong ; and that if no 
general election of members of the House of Commons had taken 
place for eight years and the representative character of the House 
had become doubtful, and the elements of the. government had fallen 
into confusion, it was all due to his own violence, perfidy and malign 
influence. When therefore not only the whole army, so intelligent, 
patriotic and well-principled, but "a great part <of the people from almost 
every county in the kingdom cried out with one voice for justice 
against the King as the sole author of all their calamities," would 
it not bave been a criminal neglect of duty to allow him to go un- 
punished on account of the very confusion in the affairs of the State, 
the production of which was chargeableon him*as a crime?*And|though 
from the nature of the case, he could not be brought to justice accord- 
ing to any prescribed legal process before known in England, was it 
not time that an oppressed people should appeal to those great elemen- 
mentary principles, whence all laws derive their reason and their force 
— to the end for which all laws are designed and in the accomplish- 
ment of which they are perfected ?f The trial of the King was 
indeed a revolutionary proceeding but not therefore unlawful. Crises 
sometimes occur in the history of nations which it would be absurd to 
confound with the ordinary course of events. Rights and interests 
which it would be criminal to surrender, are in great peril, and call 
for protective measures such as no law of the land prescribes. At 
such times it is well if men are prepared to conform to rules of con- 
duct, which, though written by no human pen, may be seen emanating 
from the principles of justice and self-preservation, with authority as 
from the law-writing finger of the Deity. 

* He said when before the High Court, "A King cannot be tried by any superior jurisdic- 
tion on earth." "I do not know how a King can be a delinquent." "There is no law lo make the 
King a prisoner." "The Commons of England was never a court of judicature." State 
Trials, I pp. 988 and 1095. Such was the chief burden of his objection as actually made at his 
trial, and even in the speech which it is said he intended to make, but did not — the purgation 
of the Commons is mentioned only as a thing of minor importance. 

t Since writing the above paragraph I have read the speech which John Cook Esq., Solicitor 
for the People in the King's trial, prepared for that occasion. In it he says : " And this law 
needed not to be expressed that if a King become a tyrant he shall die for it ; 'tis so naturally 
implied. We do not use to make laws which are for the preservation of nature, that a man 
should eat, drink and buy himself clothes and enjoy other natural comtorts. No kingdom 
ever made any laws for it. And as we are to defend ourselves naturally without any written 
law, against hunger and cold, so from outward violence. Therefore if a King would destroy 
a people, 'tis absurd and ridiculous to ask by what law he is to die. And this law of nature is 
the law of God, written in the fleshly tables of men's hearts, that like the elder sister, hath a 
prerogative right of power before any positive law whatsoever. And this law of nature is an 
■indubitable legislative authority of itself, that hath a suspensive power over all human laws. State 
Trials, I 1003. 



The proceeding in question was lawful in the same sense as the 
subsequent dethronement of James II, as our throwing the tea into 
the harbor of Boston, and, by a war of seven years, breaking assun- 
der the ties that bound us to the British Crown. Its severity was 
only proportioned to the peculiar exigencies of the case. The actors 
in it obeyed, and they evidently felt that they were obeying, the stern 
mandate of impartial justice, and yielding to a necessity — -not of their 
own creation or seeking — but imposed in its fearful urgency upon them 
in consequence of the public position which the voice of their country 
and the providence ot God had called them to occupy in relation to 
the royal offender. 

Having thus acted, they were prepared calmly to submit their 
conduct to the sober, intelligent scrutiny of mankind and to the un- 
erring judgment of God. In their own day this bold act, so unpar- 
alleled and startling, was most illustriously vindicated. Milton's 
Defence of the People of England in answer to the renowned Sal- 
masius, was such as to win the applause even of believers in the di- 
vine right of Kings, and to eclipse the splendor of his adversary's 
reputation at the very courts of monarchs. This wonderful man the 
fame'of whose genius, learning, integrity and love of liberty fills the 
world, bestowed upon this act the repeated expression of his most cordial 
approval and admiration. On the occasion referred to, though in 
feeble health and warned by his physician that the effort might cost 
him his eye-sight, he hesitated not to bring to the subject the most 
strenuous exertion of his transcendent powers. Three years after he 
"closed his eyes in endless night " he said, in touching but trium- 
phant allusion to his loss 

'• Yet I argue not 
Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
Of heart or hope ; but still bear up and steer 
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask ?-— 
The conscience, friend, to have lost them over-plied 
In liberty's defence, my noble task 
Of which Europe rings from side to side. 
This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask 
Content, though blind, had I no better guide." 

Let it be remembered that the " noble task " which thus engaged hi 8 ^ 
heart and employed his powers, and "of which Europe rang from side 
to side," was none other than his defence of the conduct of those who 
brought Charles Stuart to justice. Truth long "crushed to earth" has- 
"begun to " rise again," and not a few who continue to condemn 
Cromwell's great act in behalf of liberty, are learning to praise 
Milton's defence, of the act. But do principles which, in theory, are 
so pure and noble as to entitle the writer who states and commends 
them, to admiration, become in practice so execrable as justly to 
expose to the detestation of mankind, the actor who heroically and 
consistently exemplifies them ? Was it gloriously right in Milton 
to justify and celebrate what it Avas infamously wrong in Cromwell 
to do %* In view of all the facts, it certainly requires no great stretch 

* Milton did not defend- the execution of Charles I in the style of one who deemed the act 
barely justifiable ; he applauded it as worthy of all praise. Hear him as he apostrophizes 
the people of England'; " He [God,] has gloriously delivered- you, toe first of nations, from 



53 

«f charity or of candour to believe that those who took part in this 
proceeding were as thoroughly convinced as Milton of its justice and 
expediency. It is not difficult to imagine, as Hume himself does, 
that Cromwell might think it " the most meritorious action he could 
perform." It is, no doubt, possible that the two most profound and 
sagacious minds of the age were agreed as touching " this great 
business." Indeed there are minds even in " these enlightened days " 
that cannot share in the indignation which exclaims — not against the 
cruel wrongs and murders committed under the direction of a tyrant 
and the perfidious machinations which proclaimed him an implacable 
public enemy — but against "the atrocity " of thus punishing him after 
solemn judicial sentence according to his desert, or in the sympathy 
which sheds its tears, not at the sad remembrance of the sufferings 
and the deaths of the many that fell victims to his relentless pur- 
pose to be a despot, but at the mention of the merited doom of a foe 
to his race. For myself I cannot hesitate to pronounce that indigna- 
tion unjust, illiberal and misdirected ; and that sympathy, sickly, 
perverse and disloyal to the dictates of genuine humanity. I feel it 
to be good to weep over the distresses of the poor, of such as are 
oppressed and have no comforter, aye and of the guilty also. For there 
are bounds within which pity towards the worst of men is commen- 
dable. But, however unchristian the avowal may seem to some, truth 
obliges me to confess that my sympathetic affections will not fasten 
themselves in the fervor of exclusive or paramount interest upon a 
convicted felon though he possesses the attractiveness of guilt com- 
mitted on a grander scale than that of common offenders ; nor will 
they entwine themselves in canonizing veneration around a martyr to 
despotism and insincerity, though he towers in the awe-inspiring maj- 
esty of a prince in wickedness. Strangely regardless of the rebukes of 
the subterranean philanthropy which makes justice a name for cruelty 
and bids us reserve our pity chiefly for hardened transgressors ; and 
not anxiously heeding the frowns of the sentimental, king-worship- 
ping piety that would persuade us to keep all our tears for the "misfor- 
tunes " of illustrious criminals, they will wander from the royal 
culprit as he appears upon the scaffold before Whitehall ; they 
will follow memory and the moral sense as the pass to other scenes 
to which his agency has lent a mournful interest — to the pillory where 
stand Burton and Prynne, and Bastwick, mangled and bleeding — to 

*he two greatest mischiefs of this life and most pernicious to virtue, tyranny and supersti- 
tion ; he has endowed you with greatness of mind to be the first of mankind, who after hav- 
ing conquered their own King and having had him delivered into their hands have not scrupied 
to condemn him judicially aad pursuant to that sentence of condemnation, to put him to 
death. After the performing so glorious an action as this, you ought to do nothing that is mean 
and little, not so much as to think of, much less to do, anything but what is great ana sublime." 
Answer to Salmasius. On a previous occasion he had said, " If the Parliament and military 
council do what they do [in bringing the King to justice,] without precedent, if it appear their 
duty, it argues the more wisdom, virtue and magnanimity, that they know themseires able 
*o be a precedent to others ; who perhaps in future ages, if they prove not too degenerate will 
look up with honor and aspire towards these exemplary and matchless deeds of their ancestors, 
as to the highest top of their civil glory and emulation." Tenure of Kings, &c. Cromwell, in 
•uch company, may well be pardoned for speaking of this transaction as a "great business" 
as "the turning out of a tyrant in a way which the christians in after times will mention with 
honor, and all tyrants look at with fear." See letter XCVIl, and also letter LV in 
Carlyle's collection. . .-.-*. 



54 

the "dark and smoky room" in the tower where the brave, the 
eloquent, the soaring, the pure-minded Elliot wastes slowly away even 
to death — to the house where the wounded Hampden through days of 
torturing pain awaits his untimely exit — to the abodes of the widows 
and orphans whose husbands and fathers he has caused to be devoured by 
the sword of unrighteous war, and thence with a glance upward to Him 
who counts it abomination to clear the incorrigibly quilty, my soul with- 
out hesitation or misgiving, as it returns to view the doomed man 
exclaims, " It is right that the blood of the tyrant, murderer and 
implacable public enemy should be shed." 

This act has not been in vain. It broke as by a clap of thunder 
the charm of the sacredness of Kings. It was the coming forth " of 
the fingers of a man's hand " to write : The Days of the Irrespon- 
sibility of Princes are numbered' and their Power is given again to the 
People.* As despots "saw the part of the hand that wrole,"their coun- 
tenance was changed, and their thoughts upon the passing away of the 
majesty of Kings before the predicted and sublime outgoings of De- 
mocracy with Theocracy to obtain sway over the earth, troubled them. 
For then the principle already declared by renowned reformers, that 
it is the duty of nations to adjudge and punish tyrants, ceased to be a 
powerless abstraction. It assumed the life and potency of fact. — 
It began to control as a law. It was the beginning of a 
train of influences by which it has come to pass that through 
white lips and chattering teeth many a diademed mortal mut- 
ters, " Kings are at a discount in Europe." The phantom of 
regal majesty to which ages of superstition and childish exageration 
had lent an imposing awfulness and splendour wassmitten and brought 
into contempt by the blow that did justice ou the son of a hundred 
Kings. And " the dismal groan " then uttered by king-worshippers 
was in truth but the knell of the sentiment of passive obedience 
throughout England. What though at the end of eleven years, under 
restored monarchy the doctrine of the divine right of Kings, and of 
the non-resistance of subjects, was industriously inculcated by prelates 
and other beneficed teachers 1 Who believed it, who felt it to be a 
heaven-descended doctrine? Monarchy was restored but not the 
illusion of the sacredness of Kings. The nation's mind had received 
an impulse and had become irradiated by the light of deeds and princi- 
ples which forbade its return to its former state. The loudest advocates of 
passive obedience as soon as James* II laid his hand on them, "cursed 
him to his face." Let it not be said in disparagement of the first and 
great English Revolution that James was quietly dethroned, not 

* There is indeed a modern theory of the irresponsibility of princes according to which 
the very limited monarch of England is not politically accountable. But the theory is based on 
Ihe fact that politically the King or Queen toes nothing, being but a dignified automaton di- 
rected by ministers of state who are held responsible. " His Majesty " or " her Majesty " in 
English state papers, is but a figure of speech for the Ministers. This is quite a different thing 
from the regal irresponsibility and sacredness.assumed by Charles I,-uid other princes claiming to 
act according to their own sovereign will, either with or without the advice of ministers. Should' 
the monarch ot England undertake to act without regard to the advice of ministers and th» 
will of Parliament, it would soon cease to be a received maxim that the King or Queen " can 
do no wrong."' 

It has been justly argued by some of the French journals that Louis Philippe, by being his own 
minister and acting as he has sometimes, according to his undirected will, is no longer irresponsible- 



55 

beheaded. Why was it so easy in 1688 to depose a hereditary King 
and give the throne to others by the voice of the People and by act of 
Parliament ? The nation remembered and James had not for- 
gotten the 30th of Jan., 1649. 

Every series of great revolutions by which the human mind has ad- 
vanced and the social condition of man has been improved, has alter- 
nated more or less visibly, with a series of counter revolutions or re-ac- 
tions. New truths dawn not at the same moment upon all minds. 
Great principles destined ultimately to control the world, not unfre- 
quently ascend the throne of public opinion after ages of conflict with 
ignorance, passion and prejudice, and after many a disastrous turn of 
affairs which seemed for the time, to insure their remediless overthrow. 
The first announcement of great reformatory truths, and, especially, 
the first bold exhibition of them in action, is apt to startle and perhaps 
shock a large majority of men. Many exclaim, " \bsurd," "Strange," 
" Horrible," or "You are going too far." Sometimes those truths, 
though known and revered by, here and there, a mind that pierces thro' 
the darkness of the age, are hung up in hideous caricature, arrayed in 
disfiguring apparel, and branded with odious names, to be scorned and 
dreaded by several successive generations ; while ceaseless infamy 
seems to have become the portion of those who dared to promulgate or 
defend them. But at last their felon-garb in which prejudice and mal- 
ice had arrayed them, falls off, and they shine forth providentially 
owned of God, in the beauty and glory of a surprising transfiguration. 
The cloud that hung over the memory of their fearless confessors, is 
lifted, and lo, the sepulchres of the persecuted and defamed, are hence- 
forth seen garnished with names of which the world has become proud. 

The first bold exhibition of truths adapted to change the course of 
human thought and remove great social evils, is not to be accounted 
useless, even though, for a time, it should effect little more than to ex- 
cite opposition, inquiry, and reflection. In this way, they cease to 
appear strange, and gradually commend themselves to the approbation 
and favor of many who at first cried out against them. Accordingly 
it was not in vain that Wicklifl' shed the light of God 1 s translated word 
on the errors of Popery, though it was afterwards thought a pious act 
to violate his grave, and commit his bones, as well as his books, to the 
flames. And it was well that John Huss echoed the protesting voice of 
Wickliff, though a chariot of fire awaited him, and the hoarse cry of 
" Heresy and Blasphemy " accompanied his name for a hundred years. 
The light which gleamed from " the morning star of the Reformation" 
could not be wholly kept from shining on the world ; and the very 
flames which consumed all that was perishable of the Bohemi- 
an martyr, served only to turn the attention of Christendom to those 
errors and atrocious cruelties against which his death was a moving 
protest. Hence when, a century later, Luther exposed the apostasy 
of Rome, multitudes were more ready to listen, than if WicklifF and 
Huss had never spoken. 

Thus do great revolutions move on, amid conflicts and reverses. — 
Human stupidity, passion and selfishness, make ihis the law of social 



56 

progress. So it is in religion and so in politics. The final grand 
triumph, when the millions shout their acclaim, is often the result of 
the labors, prayers and tears of generations of the great and good, whose 
light the world was not prepared to comprehend. I repeat it, this 
act of justice which taught so impressively the responsibility of princes 
to the people, was not in vain. True, there came, at length, a reverse, 
and the times of calumny, misconception and ignorance lingered long. 
But this act, so bold, so solemn, so evincive of conscious integrity 
and lofty self-respect, and so much admired even by many, who, in 
public, have chimed in with the cant of denouncing it, was not with- 
out good effect in England's next revolution ; and has, in other lands 
and other times flashed upon the minds of oppressed nations, a cheer- 
ing conviction of the might and right of the people to rule. 

" In dust most eloquent — to after time 
A never silent oracle to kings," 

has been the martyr to despotism, consigned by the hand of justice 
to a felon's grave. Patriots have pointed to his doom and bid oppressors 
beware. Yes, hear that voice sounding out so thrillingly the awaken- 
ing notes of liberty in the Virginian House of Burgesses. "Charles 
I. had his Cromwell," it exclaims; and hark: — it falters not at the cry of 
"Treason, Treason," but adds in tones of thunder, "and George 
III. may profit by his example."* 

*In thiscountry, especially in New England, the "Regicides," or "King's Judges," 
have never been regarded with any very great horror. In the year 1660, when 
monarchy was restored, and many who acted a conspicuous part in the Revolution 
were compelled to flee for their lives to other countries, three of those who sat as 
judges in the trial of Charles I. and fearlessly signed the death-warrant of a king 
whom they had found guilty of treason against the English people, came to New 
England. Two of these, Edward Whalley and William Goffe, had held a high rank 
and displayed eminent abilities and shining virtues in the war of the Revolution, and 
under the Protectorate. Whalley was a cousin of Cromwell. It was to his regi- 
ment of the Ironside-Cavalry that Richard Baxter was chaplain. " Between him 
and the author of the Saint's Rest, there was an intimate friendship, not only while 
Baxter continued in the army, but, afterwards, when Whalley had become under the 
Protectorate of his cousin Cromwell one of the chief officers of the empire. To 
him, in token of their continued friendship, Baxter dedicated one of his works in an 
epistle which is among the most beautiful examples of that kind of composition." — 
Bacon's His. Dis. p. 123. Goffe was the son-in-law of Whalley. He distinguished 
himself on many occasions, particularly at Dunbar,and afterwards, like his father-in 
law, became one of the Major-Generals, who, in consequence of threatened insur- 
rections, excercised for a short time a species of military control over the districts 
into which England was divided. He was also a member of Cromwell's House of 
Lords. He attained such distinction by his military and civic qualifications, that his 
name was sometimes mentioned prospectively in connection with the highest honors 
of the empire. These distinguished " Regicides" arrived at Boston in July, 1660, 
in the same ship which brought the news of " the ever blessed Restoration,"' under 
the ever infamous Charles II. Nevertheless they were kindly received by Gov. En- 
dicott, by the clergy, and by the people generally, and resided at Cambridge until the 
next February. " As they became personally known, they were greatly respected 
for their piety as well as their talents and intelligence." " In November the act of 
indemnity arrived, which secured all, with certain exceptions, against being called in 
question for any thing which they had done against the government since the begin- 
ning of the civil wars ; and it appeared that these three men, with many others, were 
excepted from the general pardon. Still, however, compassion and friendship pre- 



57 

The infliction of capital punishment upon the King did not become, 
as many had predicted, the signal of renewed civil commotion. A 
few even of the friends of the Revolution, had opposed this measure 
from dread of its exciting the popular sympathy in favor of the King, 
and occasioning an insurrection. But the men who resolved to per- 
form this painful though inevitable duty, had better read the temper of 
the nation and calculated aright the effect which would be produced 
upon the public mind by unfaltering decision and righteous boldness in 
bringing the great offender to justice " in the sight of the Sun." "No 
one will stir," said Cromwell. And, sure enough, no one did "stir." 
The protracted, open trial ; the execution in the presence of assem- 
bled thousands ; the exposure of the body to the public view for many 



vented the government of Massachusetts from taking any measures to arrest them. 
On the 22d of Feb., 1661, the Governor called his council together to consult about 
seizing them ; but the council, not having received any special order on that subject, 
refused to do any thing. Four days after this, the two Regicide Judges, foreseeing 
that a warrant or order for their arrest must soon arrive from England, and that Gov. 
Endicott and their other friends there would in that case be unable to protect them, 
left Cambridge, and passing through Hartford, where they were hospitaly received 
by Gov. Winthrop, arrived at New Haven on the 7th of March. Almost immedi- 
ately after their leaving Cambridge, and before they had reached New Haven, the 
King's proclamation, denouncing them as convicted traitors, was received at Boston ; 
and thereupon a warrant was issued by the government there, and a search was made 
at Springfield and other places where they were sure not to find them." Meanwhile 
the great and good Davenport, who had now been the pastor of the church at New 
Haven about twenty-three years, (i. e. from the time of its organization) had taken 
so deep an interest in the illustrious strangers as to preach a series of sermons with 
the view of preparing the community to entertain and defend them. The founders 
of New Haven needed, however, but little prompting from their high-souled pastor 
to lead them to protect and aid, to the extent of their ability, such men. " At first 
' the Colonels,' as they were commonly called, showed themselves there openly as 
they had done at Boston ; so that their persons, their danger and the part they had 
acted, were well known to the whole community." " After some twenty days, the 
news of the King's proclamation against them having arrived, they were under the 
necessity of concealing themselves." Their concealment in the house of Mr. Da- 
venport, then in that of the late Gov. Eaton, afterwards in the cave of West Rock, 
and finally in the house of Mr. Russell, the minister of Hadley, in Mass.; their hair- 
breadth escapes, their magnanimous readiness to deliver themselves up to their pur- 
suers rather than permit their friends to come into peril ; and the failure of the wrath 
of the King and of the offer of pecuniary reward to induce the people, either in Mass. 
or Conn., earnestly to pursue or betray them, are parts of an interesting chapter of 
history, that shows pretty clearly which way the heart of New England was beating 
in relation to the trial and execution of Charles I. Says Dr. Bacon (alluding to the 
abode of " the Judges" in the cave of West Rock) "The munition of rocks that 
sheltered the fugitives when they were chased into the dens and caves of the earth, 
is a monument more eloquent than arch or obelisk. Till the mountains shall melt, 
let it bear the inscription, " Opposition to Tyrants, is Obedience to God." 

Under the influence of a rising American literature, it is to be hoped that few wri- 
ters in this country will feel tempted to revile those friends of liberty, whom the founders 
of our Democratic Republican institutions delighted to honor. All here who shall 
adopt the sneering puerilities of Blackwood's Magazine, or echo the slang and rib- 
aldiy of other publications devoted to the work of denouncing free institutions, and 
abusing their friends, will be likely to find out before long, that infamy cannot be 
made to stick to such men as the English Tyranicides — and that it belongs and will 
adhere to those, rather, who attempt to blacken their memory. 



58 

days at Whitehall ; the solemn pomp of the funeral procession ; and 
the burial at Windsor Castle, in St. George's Chapel, near the resting 
place of the proudest of the Tudors, while illustrating the magnani- 
mous spirit of those who adjudged the King, passed off with wonderful 
order and quietness. Thus ended the second of the Civil Wars of the 
first and great English Revolution — and a calm, such as had not been 
enjoyed for many years, came over the troubled realm. The Execu- 
tive authority was now vested in a Council of forty-one persons. Of 
this Council. Hon. John Bradshaw was President; and Cromwell, Fair- 
fax, Vane the Younger, and other distinguished men, were members. 
England, with all her dependencies, was proclaimed a Commonwealth 
or Free State, without King or House of Lords, and to be governed by 
" the Representatives of the people in Parliament, and by such as they 
should appoint and constitute officers and ministers under them for the 
good of the people." 

The only alarming attempt, for many months, to disturb the pub- 
lic peace, in England, proceeded from a source very unlike to indig- 
nation on account of the death of the late King. It originated in the 
misguided zeal of certain Levellers. Some of these anarchists and 
destructives were in the army ; others were abroad in the community. 
But their efforts to produce confusion, were promptly baffled by the 
mingled courage and adroitness, the severity and winning kindness of 
Cromwell. His genius, energy, and great personal influence, which, dur- 
ing the late struggle, had been so efficacious, in wedding Liberty to 
Power, and causing Justice and Force to embrace each other, were 
now illustriously exercised in allying Liberty to Order, and saving the 
nation from the evils of anarchy. In Ireland, hostilities long since 
commenced, were merely continued ; and in Scotland the embers of 
strife, already in a glow, were only preparing for a conflagration which 
any mode of ridding the English nation of Charles Stuart would have 
enkindled. New England hailed with joy the rising sun of the Com- 
monwealth, and the other colonies, with scarcely an exception, beheld 
it with no strong aversion. Nor did the monarchs of Europe, alarmed 
and indignant at this example of calling a King to account, goto war 
with the Regicide Commonwealth.* Almost every where the gov- 
ernment of England was treated with a respect, which bad rarely been 
accorded in the days of her most energetic and powerful princes. 

Before proceeding further with this sketch of Cromwell's public life, 
permit me to pause for a moment and advert to those qualities of this 
extraordinary man, which, though constituting a most interesting and 
important part of his character, were necessarily concealed in a great 
degree from the world. To do him justice, we must see him, not in 

•Clarendon speaks, with indignation, of the neglect of those Crowned Heads to 
" Vindicate the royal blood thus wickedly spilt." " Alas," says he, " there was not 
a murmur amongst any of them at it." And he relates how Cardinal Mazarin, 
(then the actual ruler of France) the King of Spain, the reigning Queen of Sweeden, 
and the Governor of Flanders, " made haste and sent over that they might get shares 
in the spoils of the murdered monarch ;" and mentions the " great joy and pomp" with 
which Cromwell's Ambassador was received at the court of bweeden, and an alliance 
formed with the English.— G. R.— VI, 242. 



• 59 

profile, but with a view so direct and full, that we can gaze, at once, 
upon all the grouped and blended lineaments of the entire man. — 
Those qualities, which he was called to exhibit upon the great stage 
of public action — his rapid and inflexible decision ; his never daunted 
courage ; his prompt and unerring perception in every emergency ot 
the practicable and the expedient ; all combined with the invinci- 
ble force of an overpowering impetuosity, arrest the attention of the 
most superficial reader, and are upon every tongue. But these did, 
by no means, make up the whole of a combination of characteristics, 
wonderfully manifold and various, yet admirably harmonized and blend- 
ed ; in which, the attributes of terrible energy, keen discernment, 
practical sense, and unshrinking justice, were felicitously balanced with 
strong natural affection, largeness of heart, tenderness of spirit, and 
evangelical humility. In this rare combination, those more stern and 
awe-inspiring qualities, which strike the supeificial or prejudiced be- 
holder as occupying the whole field of his mind, and imparting to it a 
character terribly rugged and unlovely, may perhaps be likened to the 
more majestic and awful objects vi&ible in a magnificent tropical land- 
scape, where pastures clothed with flocks and valleys bathed in gol- 
den sunshine, and adorned and fragrant with an endless and crowded 
succession of flowers and fruits, in every part of the year, are over- 
looked by giant hills which ascend on high to give thecloudy pavilion 
of the God of Thunder a resting place ; by frowning summits far 
away, which the Almighty hath touched, and they smoke; and by many 
an aspiring peak that wears the spotless diadem of eternal snow. In 
Cromwell the tremendous energy and sternness of the Great General. be- 
fore whom, opposing commanders, long familiar with war, turned pale 
and seemed bereft of their senses ; and in whose presence mutinous 
levellers threw down their arms and trembled as if a destroying angel 
had stood suddenly revealed to their view ; the firmness of the Revo- 
lutionary Statesman and Magistrate, that seemed enthroned as on a 
granite mountain, amid the surging sea of human passions and inter- 
ests, laughing at danger and opposition, and looking forth upon the 
irreclaimable enemies of righteousnes with the unmitigated ter- 
rors of law and the relentlessness of doom, were really blended 
with all the tender and amiable qualities of the man of deep feel- 
ing, used to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who 
weep ; full of the affectionate solicitude of the kind husband, father 
and friend ; and, withal, humble and confiding as a little child before 
God. There was, in truth, to borrow a homely but expressive phrase, 
"more of him " than constitutes the sum total of most, distinguished 
men. Hence, to see him as he was, we need to stop here and therein 
the course of his public history to contemplate him in the relations of 
domestic and privaie life, — to observe him amid all the gloomy cares 
and bustle and hurry of war, and the weighty responsibilities and 
pressing engagements of his Parliamentary and Protectoral life, wri- 
ting those affectionate, timely, excellent letters to his wife, his children, 
and other dear friends, which exhibit in every line his cheerful trust 
in Divine Providence, and his desire that they should possess, as of 



60 

more value than all things earthly, a good hope in Christ, [t should 
be remarked that his tender and devotional feelings were not overborne 
or suppressed, even in circumstances the most indurating, nor in ?he 
days of his greatest activity and of his most brilliant triumphs. It was 
after all the exasperating occurrences of four years of civil war, that, 
having been present at an interview between the wretched Charles and 
his children, he declared that it was " the tenderest sight that ever 
his eyes beheld," and wept plenteously when describing it.* It was 
when on his way to Ireland to suppress the Rebellion of dreadful fame, 
that he wrotef to the newly wedded wife of his son Richard. " My 
Dear Daughter," said the great Lord Lieutenant, whose moments were 
now exceedingly precious, " Your letter was very welcome to me.— 
I like to see any thing from your hand ; because I stick not to say I 
do entirely love you. And therefore I hope a word of advice will not 
be unwelcome nor unacceptable to you. I desire you both to make it 
above all things your business to seek the Lord ; to be frequently calling 
upon Him, that He would manifest himself to you in His S^n; and be lis- 
tening to what returns He makes to you: for He will be speaking in your 
ear and in your heart if you attend thereunto. As for the pleasures of this 
life and outward business, let that be upon the bye. Be above all these 
things by faith in Christ; and then you shall have the true use and com- 
fort of them — not otherwise." It was on the day after his brilliant vic- 
tory at Dunbar,that the mighty Lord General said in a letter to his 
wife:| "My Dearest — 1 have not leisure to write much. But I could chide 
thee that, in many of thy lettters, thou writest to me that I should not be 
unmindful of thee and thy little ones. Truly if I love thee not too well, 
I think I err not on the other hand much. Thou art dearer to me than 
any creature; let that suffice. The Lord hath showed us an exceeding 
mercy: — who can tell how great it if! I have been, in my inward man, 
marvellously supported: though I assure thee I grow an old man and feel 
the infirmities of age stealing marvellously upon me. Would my cor- 
ruptions did as fast decrease. Pray on my behalf, in the latter respect." 
On the same day in a letter to his loving brother [in-law] Richard May- 
or Esq., hesuidin allusion to the victory: "Good Sir, Give God all the 
glory ; and stir up all yours and all about you to do so." And it was 
only a few days alter his "crowning mercy" of Worcester, the grand 
triumph by which the last cloud of domestic war which frowned on the 
Commonwealth in his day was dispersed, and all eyes were turned to 
him as England's "chief of men," that he said in a letter^ to the 
Rev. John Cotton, Pastor of the Church at Boston, "I am a poor, 



♦Keightley— Vol. II, 16a 

fFrom Aboard the John, Aug. 13th, 1649. 

{Dunbar, Sept. 4th, 1650. 

§This letter — the 125th in Carlyle'sCoilection, and dated at London, Oct. 2d, 1651 — is worthy, 
in all its parts, of an attentive perusal. The first paragraph implies that this venerated New 
England Pastor had written Oliver a letter containing — among other things — a declaration of the 
same principles on which he and his co-adjutors had recently been acting in the cause of Eng- 
lish liberty. 



61 

weak creature, not worthy the name of a worm ; yet accepted toserve 
the Lord and his people. Indeed, my dear friend, between you and 
me, you know not me; my weakness, my inordinate passions, my unskill- 
fulness and every Way unfitness to my work. Yet the Lord who will have 
mercy on whom he willjdoesasyousee! Pray for me." Such sentiments 
of kindness, of gratitude and devotion to God, and of self-abasement, ex- 
hibited thus on occasions the most unpropitious for the vigorous devel- 
opment of such virtues, and in a private correspondence with his most 
intimate and trusted friends, are certainly very remarkable, and de- 
serve the attention of all persons who still think that his professions of 
piety were hypocritical.* It would be easy to present other illustra- 
tions of Cromwell's religious character quite as apposite as these, which 
have not been carefully selected, but taken almost at random from a 
collection of private letters, all written in the same spirit. But from 
this delightful view of his private life, I seem to be summoned away 
by voices asking, •• Yet was he not guilty of dreadful atrocities in 
Ireland P 1 

In regard to Cromwell's proceedings in Ireland, I desire to ?ay 
nothing unwarranted by historical verity and candor. Some of his 
ablest maligners have acknowledged that he was not of a cruel dispo- 
sition — that he was not a man of blood. | 

His vindication from the charge of " atrocious cruelty " in this in- 
stance, requires nothing more than a clear and fair statement of the 
Occasion of his severity — of its actual Degree— of its Motive and 
its Result. 

Let it be observed, then, first, that Cromwell was not sent into Ire* 
land to make war with an independent State, but to put down a Rebel- 
lion. Nor could the rebellion which he was commissioned to sup- 
press, be classed with ordinary insurrections against Public Authority. 
It had originated in a dark and cruel conspiracy, aiming at the utter 
extinction of the Protestant Religion, and the total overthrow of the 
English authority in the Island, by the surprisal on a given day (Oct. 
23d, 1641) of the Castle of Dublin, and a simultaneous attack upon 
the unsuspecting English in all their scattered settlements throughout 

*In the April No/of Blackwood's Edinburgh (Tory) Magazine (1847) is a review cf Carlyle'fr 
" Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell "—rather flippant and ill-natured of course, but 
showing that these letters and speeches are shedding alight not altogether pleasant to the illib- 
eral defamers of the great Puritan Hero and Statesman. In this review is the following 
admission : 

" If there is any one who still believes that Cromwell was a thorough hypocrite, that his re- 
ligion was a systematic feint to cover his ambitious designs, the perusal of these volumes will 
thoroughly undeceive him. We look upon this hypothesis, this Machiaf elian explanation of 
Cromwell's character, as henceforth entirely dismissed from all candid and intelligent »u'n<k."— 
The writer views Oliver rather as a fanatic or enthusiast. Hence we may thank him for anoth- 
er admission. " But this is evident, that to whatever extent Cromwell shared the distempered 
feelings of a sectarian party, nothing ever clouded his penetration upon any affair of conduct,any 
question of means to an end. The hour neyer came that found him wanting. At every phase" 
of the Revolution he is there to lead or con.rol or predominate over it." Clarendon had long 
ago conceded that Cromwell could not have achieved what he did M without the assistance of a 
great spirit, an admirable circumspection and sagaciiy, and a most magnanimous resolution." — ■ 
" The fanaticism of Cromwell," says Macaulay, "never urged him on impracticable underta- 
kings, or confused his perception of the public good." In view of all the facts, the world wilt 
probably soon come to the sensible conclusion that Cromwell was a very honest »« Hypocrite, " 
and an exceedingly wise, cool-headed " Fanatic I" 

|E. 6. Clarendbn, Hume, and Keightley. , 



62 

?he provinces. And although the plot had been divulged at Dublin in 
season to frustrate the design of the conspirators in reference to that 
city, yet on the appointed day, this rebellion, conceived in the darkest 
treachery, was brought forth in the barbarous and perfidious massacre 
— without respect to age, sex, or condition — of many thousands of per- 
sons who had been wholly unsuspicious of their danger. From that 
day of undistinguishing slaughter, attended by horrible atrocities, often 
worse than death, to the time of Cromwell's arrival, the rebellion had 
proceeded with a wild, superstitious, and inhuman barbarity, of which 
Carlyle's terrible description is one of the most truthful : 

" Ireland, ever since the Irish Rebellion broke out and changed itself 
into an Irish Massacre, * * has been a scene of distracted con- 
troversies, plunderings, excommunications, treacheries, conflagrations, 
of universal misery, blood and bluster, such as the world before or 
since has never seen. The History of it does not lorm itself into a 
picture ; but remains only as a huge blot, an indiscriminate blackness ; 
which the human memory cannot willingly charge itself with. * * 
Conceive Ireland wasted, torn in pieces; black controversy as of demons 
and rabid wolves rushing over the face of it so long ; incurable and very 
dim to us : till here at las', as in the torrent of Heaven's lightning de- 
scending liquid on it, we have a clear and terrible view of its affairs 
for a time." The treacheries aud cruelties of this Rebellion, even 
more than its avowed purpose, had made it for eight years, the subject 
of general and loud execration. The odium of conniving at it, or 
even of apologising for it, had been such as no party in the State 
could encounter without political annihilation.* The King and his 
adherents inRngland and Scotland had endeavored to escape this odium 
by repeatedly denouncing the insurgents as bloody traitors, deserving 
punishment for their crimes; and had professed, all along, to concur 
in the sentiment that it vitally concerned "the honor of the English 
nation " to subdue " this horrid rebellion." But. pending the efforts 
of the King to establish a despotism in England — efforts which ceased 
only with his life — he had betrayed, more and more, an unwilling- 
ness to pursue vigorous measures for quelling the insurrection, and 
indulged a disposition, as discomfiture and ruin threw their gloom over 
his prospects, to court the favor of these bloody insurgents, and to ac- 
cept their infamousservices against the cause of English liberty as an 
atonement for their past treacheries and murders, and as the price of 
impunity and even of increased favor for their continued rebellion 
against the existing Powers of the State. The darkest chapter in 

* Hence the pains of Clarendon to show that the King and his party detested the insurgents • 
In vol. II, p. 528 of his " Grand Rebellion," he represents Charles as styling them "bloody 
traitors," and says in vol. V, p. 59, that " any thing of grace towards the Irish rebels was [in 
1644, when the first civil war had been in progress two years] as ungracious at Oxford [the King's 
head quarters] as it was at London," and that " the whole kingdom had a great detestation 
of them.'' Not only so, but, in vol. VII, p. 226, after mentioning the course pursued towards 
them by Cromwell, and greatly exagerating the severity of the treatment which they had received 
at his hands, he adds : " All this was the more extraordinary, in that it was without the pity of 
any; all the world looking upon them as DESERVING THE FATE THEY UN- 
DERWENT." 

For the facts of the Irish Rebellion and Massacre, the inquiring reader is referred also to Mil- 
ton's Eikonok lastes and Observations on the Articles of Peace between the Earl of Ormond and 
he Irish, as well as to Hum*, Keightley, and Carlyle. 
I 



63 

the history of the dark intrigues of this perfidious prince, is, perhaps, 
the chapter which tells us of his secret plotting with the leaders of 
these openly denounced "bloody traitors" at the very time when, in 
a public negotiation of peace with the commissioners of Parliament, 
he was rmking fair promises and liberal concessions to the English 
patriots, and, in his communications with the Scottish Covenanters, 
was professing his readiness to extirpate heresy and give no quarter 
to popery. Undoubtedly this arrangement for employing the insur- 
gent Irish against the rights, liberties, and majesty; of the People 
of England, was not only nefarious and disgraceful, but treasonable. 
The King's death, by which order and quietness were restored in Eng- 
land, did not prevent some of the more desperate and determined of 
his party from co-operating with these rebels, and giving to the Irish Re- 
bellion, already crimson with treachery and blood, an additional hue 
of guilt and infamy, by their treason. Ormond and his British roy- 
alists could not sanctify this horrid Rebellion by joining with the ac- 
tors in it, and endeavoring to wield its terrible elements in opposition 
to the Supreme Authority of the Commonwealth, and to the rights of 
the English Nation ; they could only render it the more formidable, 
and the necessity and propriety of employing the most energetic and 
decisive measures for its suppression the more manifest and im- 
perative. 

The insurgents and their allies were in possession of all the impor- 
tant places in the island exceptDublin&Derrv, when (in August, 1649) 
Cromwell, with a strong detachment from that noble army which had 
won the victories of freedom in England, was sent thither to wield 

THE SWORD OP .JUSTICE AND PUT AN END TO THE REBELLION. 

There is reason to believe that it was with reluctance, he entered 
upon a service involving duties so difficult and painful. But that he 
went fully convinced that he was acting with the approbation of God 
and of good men, there can be no reasonable doubt.* 

* It is not necessary to suppose that he was misled by acting ender the influence of " thi old 
CovE.Niin " instead of the New, It is not in the Old Testament only, that the existence and 
authority of Civil Government are approvingly recognized, and the duties of the Executive Offi- 
cer of the Law defined Not in the Penteteuch, but in the Ep. to the Rom., XIII, 3, 4, we are 
told that "Rulers [such as God approves] are not a terror to good works, but to evil'' — that as 
one part of the duty of the ruler is to protect the good, so the other is to punish the guilty.— 
And it is distinctly declared, '"If thou do that which is is evil, [e. g. if thou art guilty of con- 
spiracy, insurrection and murder, or of treason against the Supreme Authority of the State,] be 
afraid ; for he [who is appointed to do justice and establish order,] beareth not the sword in 
tain : for he is the minuter of God, a revenger [vindicator of justcie] to execute wrath [pun- 
ishment] upon him that doeth evil." See also 1 Pet., II, 14. 

Cromwell went into Ireland not to revenge injuries which he had received as a private per- 
son, nor to persecute people of another creed on account of their opinions. He proceeded in a 
Public Capacity — commissioned to bearlhe sword and bear it not in vain — to wield it so as, in the 
speediest manner, and with the least sacrifice of life and infliction of suffering in the long run, 
to subdue those " bloody traitors," and restore order in the island. Undoubtedly if in the per- 
formance of this public service he inflicted suffering from delight in the miseries or even from indif- 
ference to the woes of others, he was chargeable, even in his official capacity, with cruelty. But if 
be aimed merely to render the sword terrible to evil doers, and, according to the best of his 
judgment subdued the Rebellion by the least practicable effusion of blood, he ought not to be 
blamed, but praised for his exercise of a needful and salutary severity : and to quote against him 
those precepts of our Savior's Seimon on the Mount, which were intended — not to palsy the arm 
of the sword-bearing Officer of State, — but to check the spirit of private revenge, is unscnptur- 
al and absurd. It is to make the New Testament contradict itself; and to countenance the 
semi-infidel teachings of non-resistants and no-government men. In relation to the duties 
of magistrates, or the officers of the Civil Government, the Old Covenant and the New, axe is 
Perfect harmony. 



Let us now enquire what was the actual degrke of severity, which 
he exercised in dissolving the nefarious coalition between British trait' 
ors and the Irish insurgents— in subduing one of the most atrocious 
rebellions on record. 

At Drogheda— * according to his uniform practice in this war — he 
" endeavored to avoid the effusion of blood " by first proposing M such 
terms'* of capitulation "as might have turned to the good and pres* 
ervation of those to whom they were offered ; this being his princi- 
ple, that the people and places where he came, might not suffer, ex- 
cept through their own willfulnesb.* His offer.in the circumstan* 
ces,so humane, having been rejected, he proceeded with characteristic 
energy, boldness and skill, to take the place in spite of strong fortifica- 
tions and a powerful garrison. A portion of the wall, having on the 
second day, yielded to his batteries, he ordered an assault to be made j 
which was unsuccessful ; and then, rallying his troops, he led them on 
in person, and forthwith carried a large part of the town by storm.— * 
Entering thus into a place wickedly held by rebels and traitors, in de* 
fiance of the Supreme Power of the State, what did he do ? It has 
sometimes been slanderously or ignorantly asserted that even women 
and children were by his orders, put to deaths But his commands, in- 
stead of authorizing any such atrocity, virtually forbade it. Listen to 
what he says in his Dispatch, addressed to the Speaker of Parliament: 
"Divers of the enemy retreated into the Mill-Mount ; a place very 
strong and of difficult access. * * * The Governor, Sir Arthur 
Ashton, and divers considerable Officers being there, our men get* 
ting up to them, were ordered by me to put them all to the sword-*- 
And, indeed, being in the heat of action^ I forbade them to spare any 
that were in arms in the town : and I think that night [it was about 
5 o'clock P. M. when the first attempt to storm the town was made] 
they put to the sword about 2,000 men ; divers of the officers and 
soldiers being fled over the bridge into the other part of the town, 
where about 100 of them possessed St. Peter's Church-steeple, some 
West Gate, and others a strong, round Tower next the Gate called 
St. Sunday's. These being summoned to yield to mercy [mark 
this fact] refused. Whereupon [i. e. amid all the hurry and tremen* 
dous excitement of such an hour, and the provocation of such a refu- 
sal to accept of "mercy,"]! ordered theSteeple of St. Peter's Church to 
be fired, when one of them [as if to show what blasphemous desparadoes 
they were,]was heard to say in the midst of the flames : ' God damn 
me ; God confound me j-— *I burn, I burn.' The next day the other 
two towers were summoned, in one of which there were about six or 
seven score ; but they refused to yield themselves [quarter being of- 
fered] : and we, knowing that hunger must compel them) set only good 
guards to secure them from running away until their stomachs were 
come down. From one of the said towers, notwithstanding their con- 
ditions, they killed and wounded some of our men. When they 
submitted, their officers [as a penalty for killing and wounding our 
men after our offer of quarter] were knocked on the head, and every 

* See his 73d Letter, and also the 71st in Carlyle's collection* 



65 

tenth man of the soldiers killed, and the rest shipped for the Bar- 
badoes. The soldiers in the other Tower [not being in Hke manner 
guilty of killing or wounding our men] were all spared as to their 
lives only; and shipped likewise for the Barbadoes." Cromwell has 
often been accused of sending some of the Irish people into Slavery ; 
and it has also been asserted that he afterwards caused certain Eng- 
lishmen to be disposed of in the same way. These statements are 
calculated to produce, in the present age, a very false and injurious 
impression. The practice of banishing or transporting persons 
found guilty of disturbing the peace, was not discontinued by 
the British Government at the death of the great Protector, as 
certain citizens of this country, recently returned from Van 
Dieman's Land, can testify. Yet this is the "Slavery" into which 
those persons were sent. *' This Slavery," says Macaulay, "was 
merely the compulsory labor to which every transported convict is 
liable. Nobody acquainted with the language of the last century, 
can be ignorant that such convicts were generally termed slaves; — 
until discussions about another species of Slavery far more miser- 
able, and altogether unmerited, rendered the word too odious to be 
applied even to felons of English origin. These persons enjoyed 
the protection of law during the term of their service. * * The 
punishment of transportation has been inflicted by almost every 
government that England has ever had, for political offences. After 
Monmouth's insurrection [in 1685] and after the rebellions in 
1715 and 1745, great numbers of persons were sent to America. 
These considerations ought, we think, to free Cromwell from the 
imputation of having inflicted on his enemies any punishment which, 
in itself, is of a shocking and atrocious character." 

In his dispatch Cromwell further declares, 'I believe [as not hav- 
ing given any order in this matter] all their friars were knocked on 
the head promiscuously but two; the one of which was Father Peter 
Taaff, brother to Lord Taaff, whom the soldiers took the next day 
and made an end of; the other was taken in the Round Tower un- 
der the repute [guise] of a Lieutenant, and when he understood 
that the officers in that Tower had no quarter, he confessed he was 
a friar ; but that did not save him." 

In estimating the character of this proceeding, it should be borne 
in mind that these " friars," taken here in this stronghold of the 
insurgents, represented a class of men peculiarly implicated — as 
the English People, on no slight evidence, almost universally believ- 
ed — in the darkest atrocities of the great Conspiracy and Massacre.* 

*The number of persons, of different ages, sexes and conditions, slain byt he 
Irish Papists in the Great Massacre could not, from the nature of the case, be 
definitely ascertained. Clarendon says, "there were 40 or 50,000 of the English 
Protestants murdered before they suspected themselves to be in any danger." 
Many more were put to death afterwards. According to Keightley "the num>- 
ber said to have been returned by the priests in Ulster from their parishes down 
to April, 1642, was 105,000 ; and Archdeacon Maxwell inhis deposition (Aug, 



On this point, an appeal may be made to writers, who certainly 
did not labor to vindicate the character of Cromwell. Clarendon 
who cordially hated the Puritans in general, and Cromwell in parti- 
cular, speaks emphatically of the efforts of "the clergy and friars" 
to incense the Irish Papists against the Protestants. Hume too, on 
the testimony of Sir John Temple, a resident of the Island in those 
days, and in a position to obtain the best information on the subject, re- 
marks that "the English as heretics, abhorred of God and detestable 
to all holy men, were marked out by the priests for slaughter." And 
Keightley, speaking of the ferocity of the insurgents, declares that 
they were "too well instructed by their priests in the sinfulness of 
showing mercy to heretics/' 

The clemency of "the soldiers" — for there is no evidence that 
Cromwell had any agency in putting the friars to death — must have 
been far in advance of the universal feeling of the age to have shown 
mercy on this occasion, to so cruel and detestable a clas3 of the in- 
surgents. The Puritan victors, it should be remembered, lived not 
in an age of Peace Societies, and of a widely diffused and abounding 
charity. Though, as touchir g the principles and practice of tolera- 
tion, they were, by a long interval, before their own age, yet they had 
not risen wholly above its imbittering influences. 

The days in which they were called to act, were the days of 
slaughter-breathing Papal leagues and of counter alliances, of the 
baleful tragedies and enormities of the Thirty-Years War, of the 
Irish and Piedmontese Massacres. Then the atrocities of the Duke 
of Alva in the Netherlands, and the horrors of St. Bartholomew's 
eve in France, together with the shouts of exultation with which 
those horrors were celebrated in various parts of Catholic Europe 
and even by Pope Gregory XIII in a solemn procession to San 
Luigi.f were fresh in the remembrance of all men, and raining their 

22, 1642,) stated that there were "above 154,000 now wanting within the pre- 
cinct of Ulster. [Milton also mentions this as the reported number in that single 
precinct. [ The general impression in England, was, that one way or an- 
other 200,000 Protestants perished in this rebellion." Sir J. Temple, 
says in his History of the Irish Rebellion : "The Catholics burnt the houses of 
the Protestants, turned them out naked in the winter, and drove them like herds 
of swine before them. If ashamed of their nudity, and desirous of seeking 
shelter from the rigor of a remarkably severe season, these unhappy wretches 
took refuge in a barn, and concealed themselves under the straw---the rebels in- 
stantly set fire to it and burned them alive. Husbands were cut to pieces in the 
presence of their wives ; wives and virgins were abused in the sight of their 
nearest relations ; and infants of seven or eight years, were hung before the eyes 
of their parents. Nay, the Irish even went so far as to teach their own children 
to strip and kill the childfen of the English and dash out their brains against the 
stones. Numbers of Protestants were buried alive. An Irish priest named 
MacOdeghan, captured forty or fifty Protestants, and persuaded them to abjure 
their religion on a promise of quarter ; after their abjuration he asked them if 
they believed that Jesus Christ was bodily present in the host, and that the Pope 
was the head of the Church. And on their replying in the affirmative, he said, 
"now then you are in a very good faith," and for fear they should relapse into 
heresy, cut all their throats." 

tRanke's History of the Popes I, 344. 



67 

alarming and exasperating influences upon Protestant Christendom. 
In these days of quiet security from persecuting violence, | it is 
much easier to feel charitable towards Papists than it was in that 
period when the very existence of Protestantism seemed often to be 
threatened by frightful plots and formidable coalitions. It may in- 
deed be questioned whether the loquacious charity which now flip- 
pantly sneers at the short-comings of the most tolerant men of that 
less favored age, is very praiseworthy. The splendor of Puritan 
virtues which have given England and our own happy country so 
large a measure of liberty and liberality of sentiment, is what makes 
Puritan faults visible to many who but for the conscientiousness, 
courage, and charity of those noble Pioneers of Freedom, would 
now be sitting in bondage to civil and ecclesiastical despots. It 
should be observed, however, that the stormers of Drogheda put the 
u friars" to death, not because they regarded them as heretics, but 
traitors chargeable with the instigation of murderous rebellion. 
It has sometimes been said, that some of the persons slain at Drog- 
heda, were Englishmen. Be it so. What were these Englishmen 
doing there ? For the sake of overthrowing the liberties of Eng- 
land, they were now in close alliance with the blood-stained insur- 
gents whom the whole British world had declared it a clear duty to 
punish for their horrid cruelties. They had thus become participcs 
crirninis in the rebellion, and deserved the doom of traitors, offend- 
ing in circumstances of p3cu)iar aggravation. 

Forster, with the disingenuous malignity which marks his "Life" 
of Cromwell throughout, asks in allusion to the massacres commit- 
ted by the Irish, "Had infants or women done this?" for says he 
" infants and women perished now in Drogheda." It is not indeed 
impossible that during the cannonade or storm, infants and women 
were accidentally killed, for such casualties are among the fearful 
liabilities of towns captured in war however humanely conducted. 
But there is not a particle of direct reliable evidence, that women or 
infants "perished now at Drogheda" in any way ; and if they did, their 
death was uncommanded and undesired by Cromwell, and contrary, 
as we have seen, to his order which by specifying those that were 
"in arms," forbade the slaying of any that were not in arms. In his 
dispatches there is no mention whatever, of any killed, but " the 
defendants" of the place, unless we except the friars : and how many 
of these were not found in arms, is uncertain. One of them at least 
was taken in "the guise of a Lieutenant." 

In his first dispatch relative to Drogheda, written in evident haste 
and very brief, Cromwell says, " The enemy were about 3,000 strong 
in the town. * * Being thus entered [i. e. by storm and in spite 
of " a stout resistance"] we ["being" as he says in his next and 
fuller dispatch " in the heat of action"] refused them quarter, hav- 
ing the day before summoned the town [with the offer of mercy.] 
•I believe we put to the sword the whole number of the defendants. 
I do not think thirty of the whole number [of the defendants] es- 



caped with their lives. Those that did, are in safe custody for the 
Barbadoes." " I do not believe, neither do I hear, that any officer 
escaped with his life, save only one Lieutenant, who, I hear, going to 
the enemy said that he was the only man that escaped of all the gar- 
rison." But in his second and more accurate dispatch, he declares 
that more than a hundred of the soldiers in one tower, and all the 
soldiers in another tower — the number not stated — -were spared as 
to their lives. 

Such precisely was the severity exercised by Cromwell at Drog- 
heda — inflicted not upon helpless women and children, nor upon 
inoffensive ministers of Religion, but upon traitors in arms, or the 
contrivers and abettors of insurrection, massacre, and desolating re- 
bellion, after they had rejected repeated offers of mercy. I have 
quoted the very paragraphs of his dispatches in which not only the 
whole amount, but the most dreadful particulars of the entire affair, 
are — as his defamers admit — stated without disguise. 

His conduct here, as well as elsewhere in the Irish campaign, has 
usually been grossly misrepresented in many important particulars. 
His dispatches, written amid the hurry and din of war, have not 
been treated with common candor, even by some authors professed- 
ly friendly. 

For example, he has sometimes been represented as saying that, 
on the day after the place was taken, nearly one thousand persons 
not in arms were slaughtered, all in cold blood. While it is perfect- 
ly obvious, on a careful perusal of the whole document, that he 
meant no such thing. Having spoken of certain wrongs which, 
only a few days before had been inflicted upon some Protestants 
at St. Peter's Church — the steeple of which he ordered to be fired 
on the night of the storm — he mentions it, while moralizing on the 
events which he had before described, as a remarkable incident, that 
nearly one thousand of them (of those who were put to the sword, 
amid the excitement and confusion which immediately ensued, 
after his entrance into the town,) were slain in that " very place," 
" fleeing thither for safety." 

Sometimes, too, writers who profess to refer to his statements, un- 
dertake to maintain against him, the charge of cold-blooded cruelty 
by painting the horrors of a slaughter kept up during " several days ;" 
although, for such a representation, there is no shadow of ground 
either in his dispatches or in the circumstances of the case. The 
whole number of the slain, was less than 3,000. Of this number, 
many must have fallen in the struggle to prevent his entrance : im- 
mediately after this, 2,000 more, including of course nearly all the 
surviving " defendants" were put to the sword. The slaughter was 
indeed terrible. But it was not cold-blooded. It was not continued 
through "several days" nor one whole day. It lasted at most but 
a few hours. It was over " that night." The only shadow of an 
exception to this remark relates to, at most, some ten or twelve 
officers, the two friars, and twelve or fourteen soldiers found in the 



69 

towers the next day; more than a hundred and possibly two hundred, 
soldiers taken at the same time being spared. Any who may have 
doubts on this or any other point which has come under review 
touching the bloodshed at Drogheda, are referred to Cromwell's two 
dispatches, the seventieth and seventy-first Letters in Carlyle's col- 
lection. These were written when the state of public feeling 
throughout Great Britain was such that he had reason to expect ap- 
plause rather than censure for the resistless energy and terrible 
severity with which he had smitten the stronghold of the detested 
insurgents. He concealed nothing but his own heroic daring in 
leading his troops to the assault, and stated the very worst particu- 
lars in bold relief. In reading these dispatches it is but candid to 
allow him to explain hisown meaning. When, for example, he says, 
in his first, short, hasty letter, " I wish that all honest hearts may 
give the glory of this to God alone, to whom indeed the praise of 
this mercy belongs," let us inquire what his mind reverts to as 
" this mercy." Is it the greatness of the slaughter — the quantity of 
blood which has flowed 1 What he immediately adds respecting 
the " inconsiderableness of the instruments" — the smallness of the 
force with which he had taken a place so powerfully garrisoned — 
would alone make it manifest that he means his astonishing suc- 
cess — his great and decisive victory which is likely to hasten the 
war to a close. But let him give his own interpretation which we 
find in the parallel passage in his second dispatch. " And now give 
me leave to say how it comes to pass that this work is wrought. It 
was set upon of our hearts, that a great thing should be done, not 
by power or might but by the Spirit of God. And is it not so, 
clearly? That which caused your men to storm so courageously, 
it was the Spirit of God who gave your men courage, and took it 
away again ; and gave the enemy courage and took it away again ; 
and gave your men courage again, and therewith this happy success. 
And therefore it is good that God alone have all the glory." 

Undoubtedly the great Puritan with his eye on certain very per- 
spicuous passages in Holy Writ,* believed fully and earnestly in the 
reality of God's Providence and was ever ready to acknowledge his in- 
debtedness to the Divine favor for all his success. In this he was con- 
stant and withal impartial ; for he was prompt to ascribe any tran- 
sient courage or success of his enemies to the same Overruling 
Agency to which he rendered all the glory of his own victories. It 
should not be forgotten, that with him war wes no professional busi- 
ness — no affair of " covering himself with glory," no game of tilting 
with blunted lances and muffled swords, or of killing men a-la-mode. 
It was only for the maintenance of rights dearer than many lives, 
or for the suppression and prevention of evils more dreadful even 
than the miseries of war, that he was ever willing to appeal to the 
sword. If he went to war, it was only against those whose wrong- 
doing was so heinous and so palpable as to justify his bearing the 

*E, G. Dan. IV, 35 ; Eccl, IX, 11 ; and Mat. X. 22. 



70 

sword against them in dread earnest ; it was only when war would 
be a true manifestation of public justice. Hence in every strug- 
gle, he looked to the God of battles for victory ; and when it was 
achieved he was thankful to the Great Disposer — not for the quantity 
of blood spilt — not for the amount of misery inflicted — but for 
the success granted him. No doubt he rejoiced at the issue of his 
battles in proportion to their decisiveness — their tendency to hasten 
the day of safe, righteous, and durable peace. But, in this, did he 
sin above the best of his coteinporaries? or above the Christian pa- 
triots of our Revolution? 

Even the present generation of Englishmen — ihough standing on 
that lofty pinnacle of Christian civilization to which they have risen 
amid the illuminating influences of this glorious Nineteenth Century, 
may with great propriety make some charitable allowance for the 
barbarous fanaticism, exhibited in the military dispatches, and 
thanksgivings of men who lived two centuries ago. In our own 
day, a hundred and ninety-seven years after the fall of Drogheda, 
occurred the slaughter of the Sikhs in Northern India. On this 
occasion " the Primate of all England " saw fit to compose a form 
of Prayer and Thanksgiving to be read on Easter Sunday in all the 
churches of the land, to commemorate the success which the 
Almighty had there granted to the British arms, and "the spirit of 
moderation and mercy" there exhibited by the victors. " We bless 
Thee O Merciful Lord" — so the Arch-Bishop indites — "for having 
brought to a speedy and prosperous issue, a war to which no occasion 
had been given by injustice on our part or apprehension of injury at 
our hands. To Thre O Lord we ascribe the glory. It was thy 
wisdom which guided the counsel. Thy power which strengthened 
the hands of those whom it pleased Thee to use as thy instruments 
in the discomfiture of the lawless aggressor, and the prostration of 
his ambitious designs. From Thee alone cometh the victory and the 
spirit of moderation and mercy in the day of success." How the 
war was brought to a " speedy" issue, and how " the spirit of moder- 
ation and mercy" was really signalized in " the day of success" may 
be seen in the history of the principal victory. " This battle began 
at six, and was over at eleven o'clock ; the hand-to-hand combat 
commenced at nine and lasted scarcely two hours. The river was 
full of sinking men. For two hours, battery after battery, was pour- 
ed in upon the human mass — the stream being literally red with 
blood and covered with the bodies of the slain. At last the musket 
ammunition becoming exhausted, the infantry fell to the rear, the 
horse artillery plying grape till not a man was visible within range. 
No compassion was felt or mercy shown." 

I willingly admit that the case of the English Prelate in the year 
1846, far removed from all exasperating or exciting influences, and 
preparing, amid the hallowed quietness of Lambeth, such a form of 
Prayer and Thanksgiving on such an occasion, is not very closely 
parallel, in some respects, to that of the Puritan commander in the 



71 

year 1G49, writing amid the fire and smoke and thunder of hurry- 
ing war, his straight-forward, earnest, but hasty dispatches and giv- 
ing God all the glory of his success in dealing a death blow to the 
Irish Rebellion. For Cromwell is entitled to the benefit of all the 
principal points of difference between the two cases. Yet I wish to 
say most distinctly, that I deem it uncandid to attribute to the Arch- 
Bishop and to the great body of English churchmen, a disposition 
to rejoice at the massacre — as such — of many thousands of their 
fellow men. Other aspects of the victory than its blood and misery, 
doubtless occupied their thoughts. But those whose conduct, in 
this age of Christianity and of "human progress," stands in so much 
need of mild construction, ought to look more gently than some of 
them do, upon the thanksgivings of Cromwell, and even of his 
"fanatical" chaplain Hugh Peters. I have no desire to cover up or 
to extenuate any of the terrors of Drogheda. But I do protest 
against the defamatory extravagance of writers who, after omitting 
to mention his repeated offers of quarter ; after giving with the 
strongest coloring, all the most revolting particulars of the slaughter 
aggravated by gross distortion as to time and circumstances ; and even 
after presenting various enormities wholly fictitious, tell us that they 
"forbear" to exhibit more than " the outlines of the horrid scene " 
from fear that the details would injuriously affect the nerves of their 
readers, or per chance " freeze their blood" ! 

Undoubtedly Cromwell's actual severity on this occasion was 
great — dreadful beyond what we find in any other part of his histo- 
ry.* But was it therefore cruel — atrocious? It can not be denied 
that dreadful evils sometimes justify, because they require dreadful 
remedies. As the humane surgeon is often obliged to perform opera- 

"The real conduct of Cromwell and his Ironsides at Drogheda, was mere}" 
itself, when compared with the undiscriminating and brutal savagery which had 
been practiced repeatedly by the Irish leaders in this Rebellion ; or when com- 
pared with the horrible slaughter, and lustful abuse and conflagration, inflicted 
upon the populous and beautiful city of Mngdeburgh (May 10, 1631,) by the 
Roman Catholic commanders Tilly and Pappenheim, to say nothing- of other 
examples of cruelty abounding in that age. See "Schiller's Thirty- Years War." 
When D'Aubigne speaks of Cromwell's severity here, as greater " than had ever, 
perhaps, been exercised by the Pagan leaders of antiquity" he betrays either a 
very hasty examination of what the Puritan commander actually did, or an aston- 
ishing forgetfulness of some very notorious facts in ancient history. Not to 
mention other instances of severity exercised by the Pagan generals of antiquity, 
take the conduct of Alexander the Great at Tyre, then the commercial queen of 
the East, a city which owed him no obedience, and which up to the time when 
he demanded its surrender, had never given him or the Greeks the slightest provo- 
cation. On entering the city — in spite of a desperate resistance — he " gave orders 
for killing all the inhabitants, those excepted, who had sheltered themselves in the 
temples, and to set fire to every part of Tyre. * * We may judge of the great- 
ness of the slaughter from the number of soldiers who were cut to pieces on the 
ramvarl (of the city) only, who amounted to six thousand [more than twice the 
whole number actually slain at D.] But Alexander's "anger not being fully 
appeased he exhibited a scene which appeared dreadful even to the conquerors ; 
for two thousand men remaining, after the soldiers had been glutted with slaugh- 
ter," " he caused them to befixed upon crosses along the seashore." See Rollin or 
his authorities, Arrian, Q. Curtius &c. 



72 

tions which, but for their results, he could not contemplate without 
a shudder, so the benevolent magistrate or commander wisely solici- 
tous for the general weal of the social body, is sometimes compelled 
to treat offending and dangerous members, with a severity upon 
which but for its mingled justice and salutariness, he could look 
only with horror. The grounds, the motire, and the tendency of 
official severity, need all to be considered in estimating the humanity 
of its author. 

Let us now hear the great commander himself — on whom has 
devolved the painful duty of restoring the diseased and shattered Irish 
body politic — explain the grounds of his rigor — so far, that is, as it 
was the result of deliberation. He says in his second dispatch, "I 
am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon those 
barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much inno- 
cent blood'''; and that "it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for 
the future : which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions which 
otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret." Not pleasure, then, 
in the death, or even indifference to the misery of those bloody, ob- 
stinate men, but justice and expediency united, reconciled his 
mind to such severity. And is there anything wrong in the princi- 
ple herein implied 1 The exercise of a just rigor towards the guilty 
and dangerous, for the protection of the community, is not to be put 
in the same category with private revenge, nor with the manifest 
immorality of "doing evil that good may come." When for the 
maintenance of law and the protection of life, a magistrate or com- 
mander makes the sword of justice terrible to evil doers whether by 
causing it to smite down individual offenders or to carry death and 
consternation into the ranks of banded murderers and armed traitors, 
he does — not wrong, not moral evil — but right that good may come. 

With strong hope that "this bitterness would save much effusion 
of blood through the goodness of G'">d," Cromwell soon after ap- 
peared before Wexford, a place considerably enriched by commerce 
and strongly fortified. Recent barbarities committed by its occu« 
pants, however irritating, did not prevent his striving to avert from it, 
the horrors of capture by storm. Still acting on the "principle that 
the people and places where he came might not suffer except through 
their own wilfulness," he first summoned the town to surrender on 
"terms which might have turned to the good and preservation of 
those to whom they were offered." True, exposed as his troops were 
to the wasting and frightful inclemency of late autumn, and know- 
ing as he did the importance of pressing onward, rapid, terrible, and 
resistless, from victory to victory, from place to place, till the work 
of quelling the rebellion was ended, he declared, with characteristic 
frankness and decision, to the "Commander-in-chief" of the town, 
who asked him to suspend his operations : "Sir, I am contented to ex- 
pect your resolution [as to the surrender] by twelve of the clock to- 
morrow morning. Because our tents are not so good a covering 
as your houses, and for other reasons I cannot agree to a cessation." 
He rightly thought that, in the circumstances, no dallying was al- 



73 

lowable. He made, as he was bound to make, all haste in the erec- 
tion of his batteries. But meanwhile he granted, at the Governor's 
request, a sale conduct for four persons to come and treat with him 
about the surrender of the town ; which safe conduct not having been 
used as he expected, was revoked. His preparations being comple- 
ted, the cannonading was commenced on the 10th day after his first 
summons. After the throwing of about "a hundred shot," the Gov- 
ernor again requested a safe conduct for four persons to go forth and 
treat with him about yielding up the town, and the favor was grant- 
ed. Indeed, to the very last, he was ready to receive proposals of 
submission, and to grant quarter on condition of surrender. 

The storm and the slaughter which finally occurred, were to him 
alike undesirable and unexpected — coming as Carlyle truthfully re- 
marks, 'not by forethought," but "by chance of war." This calam- 
ity or judgment befell Wexford partly through the insolence and 
indecision of its defenders, and partly through the impetuosity of the 
storming host, provoked by an ill-timed resistance, after they had en- 
tered the town ; — not through any order given by Cromwell. 

Whilst he was preparing an answer to proposals from the besieged, 
which for "their abominableness," and their exhibition of "the impu- 
dency of the men," he transmitted as a curiosity to Parliament, and 
whilst he was ''s'udying to preserve the town from plunder" the Cas- 
tle was yielded up to the English. "Upon the top of which," says 
he, "our men no sooner appeared, but the enemy quilted the walls 
of the town ; which our men perceiving, ran violently upon the town 
with their ladders and stormed it. And when they were come into 
the market place, the enemy making a stiff resistance, our forces broke 
them ; and then put all to the sword that came in their way. Two 
boats full of the enemy attempting to escape, being overset with 
numbers, sank ; whereby, were drowned near three hundred of them. 
I believe, in all, there were lost of the enemy not many less than 
two thousand; and I believe not twenty of yours from first to last of 
the seige. And indeed it hath, not without cause, been deeply set upon 
our hearts that we intending better to this place than so great 
a ruin, hoping the town might be of more use to you and the army, 
yet God would not have it so; but by an unexpected providence, in 
his righteous justice, brought a just judgment upon them, causing 
them to become a prey to the soldier, who in their piracies had made 
preys of so many families, and now with their bloods to answer the 
cruelties which tLey had exeicised upon divers poor Protestants." 

Surely, Cromwell ought not to be blamed for bloodshed, which 
he sought to prevent. And to accuse him of treating the Irish Catho- 
lics as the ancient Israelites treated the doomed inhabitants of 
Canaan, — of making "Drogheda as Jericho," and "Wexford as Ai," 
and of marching " in grim triumph" slaughtering and pillaging with- 
out regard to the age, sex or conduct ot the people, is an outrage 



74 

upon truth, which writers with the real facts before them, ought 
never more to countenance.* 

The details in respect to Wexford as well as the orders at Drog- 
hedn, show how utterly groundless is such a charge. Besides, there 
is a fact related even by his enemies, which demonstrates its glaring 
absurdity. Jt is, that Cromwell by " pnper Proclamation," and with 
the sternest rigor, prevented every species of depredation upon the 
people, wherever he was marching or had taken up his quaiters ; .• nd 
such confidence in his equity and ingenousness, was begotten among 
the Irish, that they crowded into his camp as to a most inviting mar- 
ket, where sure prices were paid and fair dealing was energetically 
enforced : so that his army was " much better supplied" says the un- 
friendly Carle " than any of the Irish armies had ever been." 

It remains now to inquire, what was the result of this course of 
mingled mercy, lofty integrity and tremendous energy. Did his 
severity to unyielding offenders, — coupled as it was, with the holding 
out of the Olive-branch to the submissive — shorten the struggle and 
diminish the bloodshed ? 

Was it adapted to do this ? He thought it was. Did he err in this 
opinion ? Not only such writers as Milton and Carlyle, but Claren- 
don, Carte, and Hume, testify lo the good fruits of this policy. The 
doom of the defenders of Drogheda, and the unexpected, but fearful 
fate of the men of Wexford, struck terror into the hearts of the in- 
surgents, throughout the Island. Ciiies and fortified towns, in rapid 
succession, opened their gates at his approach ; or, while he was still 
at a distance, yielded to the terror of his name, knowing that his 
sword gleamed mercy and prctection to the submissive and unoffend- 
ing, but discomfiture and ruin to obstinate disturbers of the peace. 
And thus a struggle which by different measures at the beginning, 
would in all probability have lasted many years wilh an immense cost 
of blood and a frightful accumulation of woes, was brought to a close 
wilh but small aggregate loss and misery, witnin a few months. 

Nor was this happy result accidental. It accorded not only with 
the expectation of Cromwell, but with what humane and intelligent 
writers now almost universally regard as a settled principle — that 
war — especially war to reduce an insurrectionary province — causes 
less bloodshed and misery bv being vigorous, terrible and brief, than 
by being indecisive, forbearing and protracted. f 

*See the facts in detail, and his correspondence in full, with the commandant 
of the town in the 72d Letter of Carlyle's Collection. Hume and others have 
misrepresented his conduct at Wexford partly by exaggeration and partly by sup- 
pression . 

t Since the delivery of this lecture, I have seen [in the article of Blackwood's 
Magazine, referred to already p. 61] the following admission by- a writer, suf- 
ficiently hostile to the great Puritan commander. " If the apologist of Cromwell 
will be content to rest his case on the plain ground open to all generals and cap- 
tains, on whom has devolved the task of subjugating a rebellious and insurrec- 
tionary country — on the plain ground that the object is to be more speedily effect- 
ed, and with less bloodshed and misery to the inhabitants, by carrying on 
the war at the commencement with the ■utmost severity [thus breaking down at 
once the spirit of insurrection] than by prolonging the contest through an exercise 



75 

Here permit me to ask : Was it right to subjugate those cruel iv- 
surgents, and effect the pacilication of that tarnished and bleeding 
country in any mode? To this intei rogatory, Cromwell's bitterest 
and ablest detractors would not say, Nay ; nor would the voice of en- 
lightened humanity put in a negative. To attempt to dignify the 
dark treacheries and sanguinary outrages ol those desolators, with the 
name of efforts for liberty, is abhorrent to common sense. The 
whola land saturated with blood and smoking with ruins, presented at 
the time of Cromwell's arrival, a scene of wide-spread and indescri- 
bable wretchedness, and was groaning for deliverance from the horri- 
ble reign of barbarism, superstition and revenge. " Such waste had 
there been" says Ludlow "in burning the possessions of the Englisn, 
that many of the natives themselves were driven to starvation ; and 
I have been informed" he adds, " by persons deserving credit that the 
sime calamity fell upon them even in the first year of the Rebellion 
through the depredations of the Irish; and that they roasted men 
and ate them, to supply their necessities. Such a war is worth 
ending at some cosT.''* The relation sustained to Ireland, by 
the English Government imposed upon it, the duty of arresting 
the horrors and crimes of this rebellion. 

It may however, be set down as one of the greatest infelicities of 
Cromwell's life that the task of preforming this duty was assigned to 
him ; for it was a task which it was not possible to execute with 
needful promptitude, and with the smallest sum total of bloodshed, 
without extreme pain to his instinctive humanity and great hazard to 
his reputation. It was certainly not on office to be coveted by a man 
of his known tenderness of feeling, unless sustained by the most 
invigorating sense of public duty. 

But, if it was right to put a stop to the atrocities and terrors of this 
struggle against law and order, it is pertinen* to inquire: In ichat 
way? Do you say: "By proclaiming all the insurgents uncondi- 
tionally pardoned ;.nd left to be reclaimed by moral suasion" ? To 
say nothing of the probability that, in that case, such suasion would 
have been of slow and feeble operation, it is sufficient perhaps to 
reply that when one or two of the great Powers of the earth shall 
have illustrated by their own example, the excellency of this method 
of subduing hardened and blood-thirsty disturbers of the peace, it 
will seem more candid than it now does, to decry the Puritan Com- 
monwealth for not adopting such a policy two hundred years ago. 
Or do you say : " Cromwell was required bv his Christian profession 

of leniency and forbearance, we are not aware that any decisive answer can be 
given him. It is an awful piece of surgery to contemplate — one may be excused 
if one shudders both at it and the operator, but nevertheless, it may have heen 
the wisest course to pursue. As a general RULE every one will admit, that if 
war there must be, it is better that it should be short and violent than long and 
indecisive ; for there is nothing so mischievous, so destructive of the industry 
and moral character of a people as a war which, so to speak, domesticates itself 
amongst them." 

"Carlyle. 



76 

to wield the sword with great gentleness"? I reply that he was 
bound, as a Christian commander, to make his sword a terror to the 
evil and a defence to the good, by " bearing it not in vain ;" that he 
was not very evidently obliged by '.he principles of enlightened hu- 
manity, to adopt, on this occasion, a course confessedly not the 
wisest — a course which he knew would protract the contest, multiply 
and swell the streams of Mood running through the land and increase 
the deluge of Ireland's woes ; and that he possibly would not have 
done more good and less evil by shutting his eyes to the glaring facts 
of the case, and going in amiable blindness, from place to place, 
sprinkling fierce and treacherous rebels, now with just enough >f rose- 
water" to excite their contempt, and now with just enough blood to 
arouse their hatred to new fury; his patriotic Ironsides meanwhile 
sinking into premature graves, by hundreds, each week, not by the 
sword of the enemy, but by the unhealthful exposures of so weari- 
some and useless a service. 

Seeing nothing in the past acts, or in the present conduct of those 
ferocious insurgents, which entitled them to the expensive courtesy of 
a needless sacrifice of thousands of his high-souled invincibles, 
and of an unnecessary effusion of rivers of Irish blood, he chose the 
" cruel policy" of striking such a blow at the beginning as would save 
life and prevent misery. 

Whether Carlyle deserves the charge of " hero worship," when 
he gives the name of" rose-water sentimentalism" to the mawkish ten- 
derness which exclaims against this choice or Cromwell, claims per- 
haps, a moment's consideration. 

No person should be accounted a shallow sentimentalist, for con- 
demning atrocities like those which have been attributed to Cromwell 
by a multitude of authors who consulted their imaginations or their love 
of popularity more than the authentic documents. Had the facts of 
this Irish Campaign been really such as those writers have represent- 
ed, gCromwell would have deserved severe censure. Indeed his charac- 
ter would have been hardly worth vindicating, unless by some mar- 
vellous ingenuity it could have been shown that his mind — usually so 
clear and of a temper so just, magnanimous and mercilul — was now 
laboring under " a temporary insanity." 

Nor ought one to be charged with unwarrantable sensibility for 
regretting that the "surgery" performed at Drogheda, was not re- 
lieved of one or two incidents of the terrific, arising from the exces- 
sive " heat of action" enkindled in the fierce struggle of the storm- 
In extenuation of this fault of excitement, it ought perhaps to be re. 
marked that, on this occasion, Cromwell, instead of occupying the 
usual position of a Commander-in-chief, felt himself obliged in 
the last and successful assault, to lead the storming party in person, 
not only exposing himself like a common soldier, but putting forth 
efforts, which to frier.dsand foes seemed almost superhuman. Such aw- 
ful service in an hour so rude must have been unpropitious to the reign 
of Mercy even in a heart habitually attuned to magnanimous pity. 

These things premised, it is not difficult to see that there are 



77 

writers who merit the keenest edge of Cariyle's sarcasm upon cant- 
ing sentimentalise ; and who should not cast the first stone at him 
for " hero-worship." When an author who has scarcely a word of 
earnest and stern reprobation, for the infernal trade of human butch- 
ery ; who hardly recognizes the important distinction, between taking 
the lives of insurgent murderers, and traitors, for th« necessary 
maintenance of law ; and slaughtering multitudes in an application 
of force, which is no manifestation of public justice, but a murder- 
ous struggle for supremacy, false honor or rapine ; who evidently 
delights to throw the dazzling robe of glory around " the hideous god 
of war," and to lend enchantment to battle scenes ; who glows and 
endeavors to make his readers glow with martial enthusiasm, as he 
follows the hero of his worship, from one myriad immolation to 
another on the blnody altar of military fume ; when he attempts to 
horrify us at the dreadfulness of the blow, by which Cromwell " cut 
through the heart" of the Irish Rebellion, and put so speedy a stop 
to the effusion of Irish blood, he may well be admonished not to 
claim for this, the credit of a very sublime benevolence, or of a 
very earnest abhorrence of the lowest form of " hero-worship." Let 
not such humanity boast itself, for it is as contemptible as it is 
thoughtless, and devoid of all sound principle. Cromwell ian Puri- 
tanism deemed it atrocious murder, to take men's lives at all in such 
wars, as this sentimentalism does not scruple to glorify. It did 
indeed, recognise such realities as eternal Right, eternal Obligation, 
and the necessity of Public Justice. It saw no reason why 
Government should not exist, both human and divine, to defend the 
Right of the good against the Wrong of those who will net be 
children of light and must therefore be restrained by force. And 
knowing that individuals as such, are forbidden, when wronged, to 
take the work of punishment into their private hands, partly be- 
cause vengeance, or the office of vindicating the Right by punishing 
the Wrong, is committed to such Government,* it did not refuse to 
employ its might in defence and vindication of the Right, when 
Providence had made it the existing Power. But war as an honor' 
able railing, — war for glory, conquest or mere revenge, it account- 
ed an abomination. 

I may be expected, here perhaps, to bestow, at least, a passing 
remark upon " the curse" said to have been inflicted upon the 
Irish Nation by Cromwell, not only in his campaign, but in settling 
their affairs as he did, after the close of the war. 

Of the ills of this " curse" so loudly bruited, I have little more 
than time to say, that they belong rather to that species of fiction, 
which constitutes the staple of a violent partisan literature, than to 
authentic history. 

Ireland, at this time, was very thinly peopled, and the great mass 
of the inhabitants were extremely ignorant and barbarous. The 
richest elements of national prosperity — a productive soil, exhaust. 

*Read Rom. XII, 19-21. in connection with XIII. 1-6. 



78 

less mines, navigable rivers, safe and spacious harbors, a salubrious 
climate, and above all. the admirable native powers and susceptibili- 
ties of the Irish mind — had not sufficed to make her the abode of 
thrift, happiness ant a brightening civilization. A superstition, 
dependent on popular ignorance, and therefore hostile to popular 
intelligence, had held a disastrous sway over the Nation's intellect 
and heart, and shrouded that otherwise delightful land in the shadow 
of death; and a proneness to violence and bloodshed, rendering life 
and property insecure, had followed in the train of priestly domina- 
tion and barbarism, discouraging productive industry and diffusing, 
far and wide, the gloom of want, of misery, of frightful depopula- 
tion. 

Indeed Ireland's Curse op curses, under the malignant potency 
of which, her understanding had been darkened, her generous af- 
fections perverted and imbittered, and the buds of primeval promise 
which once began to bloom so hopefully on the Emerald Isle, caused 
to wither, was of earlier date than the Puritan Age; and did not 
cease to make her art object of wonder and pity, when the star of the 
great Protector set. " She is blessed" — once remarked Lord Bacon 
to James I. — -'' with all the dowries of Nature, and with a race of 
generous and noble people; but the hand of man does not unite 
with the hand of Nature. The harp of Ireland is not strung to 
concord. It is not attuned with the harp of David, in casting out 
the evil spirit of superstition, or the harp of Orpheus in casting 
out desolation and barbarism."* Held by some strange spell of 
delusion, in willing bondage to the spiritual Power under whose en- 
couraging sanction, the" accursed Anglo-Saxons" had proceeded to 
take possession of her ; yet wrathfully kicking against the goads of 
the temporal Power to which she had been so authoritatively 
consigned ; couching down for five hundred years, between the two 
burdens of Rome and England — the former unfelt, but more op- 
pressive, by far, to soul and body, than the latter ; and breathing 
evermore the spirit of sanguinary domestic strife, is it any wonder 
that this 

" poor kingdom sick with civil blows," 

had, ere the coming of the mighty Puritan, shown among her many 
signs of woe, that she was fast becoming 

— " a wilderness again 

Peopled with wolves her old inhabitants ?"t 

It is evident from her wretched and desolate condition, when 
Cromwell arrived, and the happy change which speedily result- 
ed from his policy, that he acted with the clearsightedness of a con- 
summate statesman, and the enlightened humanity of a judicious 

"Montague's Life of Bacon prefixed to Bacon's Works. 

t As applied to Ireland at that dreadful period, this is no fiction. " There is a 
remarkable deficiency of wood in Ireland, though old historians speak of the 
country as one continuous forest. The woods were destroyed with so unsparing 
a hand, that well grown timber is rarely to be seen. In the seventeenth century 
thet were infested wiTH wolves." £.ncyc. Am. Art. Ireland. 



79 

philanthropist. He saw that none but the most energetic and de- 
cisive measures, could give her the needful benefits of law and 
order ; and he promptly adopted the requisite course. 

What was his actual procedure ? The lucid and undeniable 
documentary statement shows that the Cromwellian policy proposed, 
not fhe " extermination" of the Irish people, but the establishment 
of order, tranquility, and general security, on the basis of justice 
and an of enlarged view of their best interests. 

It rendered all husbandmen, ploughmen, laborers, artificers, and 
others of the meaner sort — the mass of the nation — exempt from 
punishment and question as to the eight years of blood, crime and 
misery, which were now ended* It instituted for the ringleaders 
of insurrection — the rebellious landholders and Popish aristocracy — 
a carefully graduated scale of penalties, in order that punishment 
and guilt might correspond ; directing accordingly, that none 
should suffer without legal inquiry and due trial first had.* It pro- 
vided that all who could be proved to have had a hand in the great 
Massacre, should undergo death or confiscation, and perpetual 
banishment ; that certain others who had at specified dates, 
borne arms against the Parliament, should be deemed to have 
forfeited their estates, but receive lands to the value of one third 
of the same, to live upon where the Parliament should think safest; 
and that, another class consisting of open Papists, whose manifested 
disaffection to the Parliament, endangered the weal of the country, 
and increased the expense of maintaining its peace and safely, should 
forfeit one third of their estates, and continue quiet " at their peril." 
" Such" says Carlyle, " is the document, which was regularly acted 
on ; fulfilled with as much exactness as the case, now in the hands 
of very exact men, admitted of. The Catholic Aristocracy of Ire- 
land have to undergo this fate, for their share in the late miseries, 
this and no other : and as for all ploughmen, husbandmen, artificers 
and people of the meaner sort, they are to live quiet where they are 
and have no questions asked. Incurably turbulent ringleaders of 
revolt, are sent to the moorlands of Connaught. Men of the Mas- 
sacre, where they can be convicted, of which some instances occur, 
are hanged. 

"The mass of the Irish Nation, quiet under a new Land Aristocra- 
cy ; new and in several particulars very much improved indeed ; 
under these lives now [during the remainder of Cromwell's life] the 
mass of the Irish Nation ; ploughing, delving hammering, with their 
wages regularly paid them ; with the truth spoken to them, and the 
truth done to them, so as they had never before seen it, since they 
were a Nation! Clarendon himself admits that Ireland flourished, 
to an unexampled extent, under this arrangement. One can very 
weil believe it. What is to hinder poor Ireland from flourishing, if 
you will do the truth to it, and speak the truth, instead of doing the 
falsity and speaking the falsity 1" 

*See Carlvle. 



80 

To a considerable number of Irish officers of unquiet spirit, 
who had been taken prisoners of war, near the close of the struggle, 
Cromwell granted permission to embody regiments of those, who 
preferred the excitement and bloody revelry of the camp and the 
battlefield far away, to the monotonous safety of a peaceful life at 
home, and to go abroad with them into any country not at war with 
England. " Some five and forty thousand ' Kurisees,' or whatever 
name they had, went in this way to France, to Spain, and fought 
there far off, and their own land had peace."* 

Having brought th? exterminating war of the Rebellion to a 
speedy close, and punished, as in duty bound, persons found stained 
with the blood of the Massacre, and sent the irreclaimable movers 
of strife, to places where they ceased to be dangerous, he sought to 
remove the cause of the Nation's calamities — a superstitious and 
sanguinary barbauism — by measures adapted to diffuse the light of 
Revealed Truth, and awaken a desire for moral, intellectual and 
social improvement, and to repair the desolations of the Island, by 
protecting life and property, encouraging industry, fostering the 
useful arts and inviting thither emigrants from various parts — es- 
pecially England. Under this policy, Ireland was fast emerging 
from her darkness and ruin. Civilization and wealth were malting 
rapid progress, even in parts of the Island, where a blind bigotry 
had so lately cried, Kill, kill, and where gaunt Famine had fol- 
lowed in the track of an all-destroying revenge. Her waste places 
began to resound with the hum of a busy, thriving population. The 
tide of emigration from England, was like that which has been 
lately flowing from our Eastern and Middle States to Wisconsin 
and Iowa ; and in language, institutions and social habits, Ireland 
was fast becoming another England. 

It was not to be expected, that a policy so wide in its scope, so 
thoroughly reformatory in its bearing upon the entire civil and 
social system, and so prompt and energetic in its operation, as this, 
of necessity, was, brought with its vast and various blessings no 
evils. How to give prosperity in any very cheering degree to the 
ever misguided, ever suffering, ever complaining Nation of the 
Green Isle, is a problem which no other English statesman in cir- 
cumstances however favorable, has been able to solve. It is the 
glory of Cromwell, that he wrought out this problem, to the admira- 
tion of bitter enemies and defamers, at a time when its solution was 
attended with unexampled difficulties. 

Clarendon, speaking of the effects of Cromwell's policy, says : 
" Which is more wonderful, all this was done and settled within 
little more than two years — to that degree of perfection, that there 
were many buildings raised for beauty as well as use ; orderly and 
regular plantations of trees and fences, and enclosures raised 

*It has been computed that during the period from 1691 to 1745, not less than 
450,000 irishmen fell in the service of France alone. Encyc. Am. Art. Ireland. 
The number maybe exaggerated, butitis evidentthat military emigration from 
Ireland, was by no means peculiar to the days of Cromwell. 



81 

throughout the kingdom ; purchases made by one from another at 
very valuable rates, and jointures made upon marriages, and all 
other conveyances and settlements executed, as in a kingdom at 
peace within itself, and where no doubt could be made of the va- 
lidity of titles." 

Such fruits of considerate statesmanship, are not to be viewed as 
grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles. 

If, as some have asserted, the words "extirpation," and " eradi- 
cation" were often in the mouths of " the English back-settlers of 
Leinster and Munster," it should be observed that these words were 
not Cromwell's ; nor did 1 hey express any ideas which had his sanc- 
tion. What his plan of settlement actually was, and with what 
exactness it was carried out, we have seen. It is not indeed difficult 
to imagine that those English back-settlers, dwelling amid the sad 
mementos of the attempt made some eight years before, to effect a 
very literal "extirpation," may not, for atime, have been in a mood 
the most loving, towards a people whom they regarded as more or 
less concerned in that cruel effort ; and that some of them may oc- 
casionally have uttered angry expressions. But, for any such hasty 
words, he was not responsible. With characteristic clearness of 
intellect, and energy of purpose, he devised and enforced a system 
of measures, calculated to maintain justice, internal peace and 
general prosperity where for ages and especially for the last eight, 
years, fierce bigotry, unbridled passion and unsparing violence had 
reigned and devastated. The same keen sense of the right and the 
expedient, which caused him, during the war, vigorously to restrain 
his troops from all depredations upon the property of the Irish, led 
him afterwards with like energy, to "protect from violence in their 
persons and goods," all who were willing to live peaceably. 

The evils which may, in some instances, have befallen the native 
inhabitants, through the ingress of so many emigrants from Eng- 
land, in general, far superior to the Irish in wealth, intelligence and 
social standing, were not results which he sought to produce, or which 
it was possible for him to prevent. They were, as Macaulay seems 
to admit, examples of " those fearful phenomena which have 
almost invariably attended the planting of civilized colonies 
in uncivilized countries." If it be true that any of the old Celtic 
population became, as this brilliant writer intimates, " hewers of 
wood and drawers of water" to the Anglo-Saxon new-comers, the 
fact is to be ascribed to a cause beyond the control of the great 
Protector. He who made Man has ordained that power shall dwell 
with knowledge, industry and wealth. This ordinance of the 
Most High, it was not within the competency of the mighty English- 
man to reverse. He could reasonably be expected only to employ, 
as he did, the best measures then and there practicable, to remove 
the superstitious ignorance, the wasteful improvidence, and the crush- 
ing poverty, whence that miserable inferiority proceeded. 

Those who so loudly complain of the injury thus done, would do 



82 

well to inquire, what was the amount of evil which really accrued 
to the Nation in general, or to those ° sufferers" in particular by 
their becoming law-protected, and well paid (i hewers of wood and 
drawers of water," instead of remaining in the bondage and destitu- 
tion and peril of a blighting barbarism — destroyers of wealth 
and siieddees of blood. I will apologize for cruelty in no man ; 
but I feel constrained to say — and the subsequent history of Ireland 
bears me out in the declaration — that her lot would have been far 
happier, had she enjoyed a fuller experience, and a longer continu- 
ance of the Cromwellian system ; and thus come into the circle of 
nations enjoying the light of an open Bible, and favored with the 
institutions, customs, and influences of a truly Christian and all- 
elevating civilization.* 

It was at the end of scarcely nine months from Cromwell's land- 
ing in Ireland, that nearly tlie whole country was subjected to the 
reign of peace and order. The mingled boldness and prudence, 
energy and patience, severity and mercy, by which he rendered this 
difficult and tremendous campaign, so short and as a whole, so free 
from misery and bloodshed, were, at the lime, the theme of univer- 
sal admiration ; and certainly the daring wisdom and skillful 
impetuosity, by which he pressed on with increasing moral momen- 
tum, from success to success, leaving the enemy no time to 
recover spirit, or gather strength for resistance, can hardly find a 
parallel from the days of "Philip's warlike son," to the era of Napoleon. 
It was on the occasion of his return from the Irish campaign to 
London, amid the enthusiastic plaudits of the English Nation, 
when Lord General Fairfax and the chief officers of the Common- 
wealth, military and civil, and the members of Parliament, and "all 
the world," were out with the thunder of artillery, and with the accla- 
mation of their myriad voices, to do him honor, that, he is reported 
to have said, when some sycophantic person exclaimed : " What a 
crowd come out to see your Lordship's triumph !" — " Yes, but if it 
were to see me hanged, how many would there be?" Such a re- 
mark, coming from the lips, not of a disappointed seeker of popular 
applause, but of a victorious General, in the very hour of his recep- 
tion at his country's capital, with such universal and laudatory wel- 
come, indicates a spirit singularly penetrating and unseduced by 
vanity. 

The pacificator of Ireland, had been urgently requested to hasten 
to the execution of another task, still more difficult and dangerous, 
the task of extinguishing the flames of a war which had been en- 

* When this lecture was delivered, I regretted the necessity of omitting or 
abridging much which I deemed it important to say respecting these Irish affairs. 
There is no part of Cromwell's history, which has been the subject of more in- 
jurious misrepresentation than this, and none which now stands in so much need 
of candid elucidation. Whilst expressing the same views which were declared 
when the lecture was delivered, I trust 1 shall be pardoned, if in the publication, 
I give in full, what I was then compelled, for want of time, to present in mer* 
outline. 



83 

kindled against the Commonwealth, by the leaders of the Scottish 
Church and State. The Northern horizon was already tinged with 
a menacing glow. 

The course now pursued by the Covenanters, was strange indeed, 
and full of danger and disaster to British liberty. It involved the 
failure of English Puritanism. 

How happened it, that, instead of listening to the Divine voice 
uttered in the mournful events of the preceding half-century, bid- 
ding them disown the ungrateful and accursed House of Stuart, 
they were ready to imperil their own religious freedom, and the 
rights of good men throughout the Commonwealth, by a war to en- 
throne Charles II? — that, abhorring "malignancy" (another name 
for hostility to spiritual and scriptural Christianity,) they had set 
their hearts upon the very chief of malignant s as their king? — and 
that hating profaneness and licentiousness, they had sent a deputa- 
tion to a notorious son of Belial, to invite him to become their Defend- 
er of the Faith ? 

It is, no doubt, true that this most worthy representative of" the 
blessed martyr," did solemnly profess himself a covenanted Presby- 
terian, promising ever to uphold the interests of the gospel, and of 
the kingdom of Uhrist, in Scotland, England, and Ireland, in oppo- 
sition unsparing to popery, prelacy, heresy, schism, and profane- 
ness ; and that he scrupled not, to publish a declaration, setting forth 
his humiliation and grief, for the blood-guiltiness of his father and 
the " idolatry," (popery) of his mother, as well as for the constant 
enmity to the work of God, which had hitherto marked his own en- 
tire life.* But his veil of hypocrisy, though sufficiently black, was 
too thin and too awkwardly assumed, to conceal his real sentiments 
and design from the view of any person not unwilling to see. 

It is also true, that they were exceedingly zealous to maintain their 

*CIarendon's Grand Rebellion, Vol. VI. and Bishop Burnet's Hist, of His Own 
Time p. 37. 

The loyal Clarendon seems hardly to have realized the infamy which such a 
transaction must affix to the memory of Charles, and relates it as merely reflect- 
ing discredit upon those who refused to accept the unfortunate Prince as their king, 
except upon a condition so hard ! It ought perhaps to be said in apology for the 
historian, that this act of monstrous duplicity, though enough to disgrace a com- 
mon man, was too much in keeping with the general tenor of the conduct of the 
two Charleses, to attract special notice. The sentiment that, " right may be 
violated forthe sake of reigning" — a sentiment, which in the mouth of Heathen 
Rome's great demagogue, was deemed abominable — seems to have been a part of 
the current morality of the Stuarts in the days of " theGrand Rebellion." 

Bishop Burnet says, "It was thought a strange imposition to make him [Charles 
II.] load his father's memory in such a manner." The interesting young man, 
however, glided with singular facility through the solemn formalities of his 
hypocrisy and perjury ! "He said he could never look his mother in the face," if 
he signed the declaration respecting his father's bloodguiltiness in waging war 
against his people, and his father's sin in marrying an idolatress. " But" says 
the Bishop, " when he was told [by his partisans] it was necessary for his affairs, 
he resolved to swallow the pill without farther chewing it." Thus profligacy — 
teaching that the end sanctifies the means — was wonderfully justified of her hope- 
ful son, at the very commencement of his public life ! 



84 

Covenant, and that in this formula, a clause had been inserted, " to 
preserve the king's person, crown and dignity." But the solemn 
League and Covenant had originated, as they professed, in their 
desire to guard the religious and civil freedom, the peace and morals 
of their country, when endangered in 1638, by the tyranical mea- 
sures of Laud and Charles ; and this provision for the person, crown 
and dignity of a Stuart king, had from the first, been treated both 
by the Scotch and the English Presbyterians, as conditional and 
altogether subordinate. Thus understood, the Covenant had been 
subscribed, in evident good faith, as late as 1643, by the whole 
patriotic party in Parliament — including, of course, Cromwell, Sir 
Harry Vane, and other stanch friends of religious and civil liberty. 
The sentiment of qualified loyalty to Charles, was not yet wholly 
repudiated by these men. We have seen that < ven four years later, 
the hero of Marston-Moor and Naseby, endeavored, at the risk of 
his popularity with the army, to effect a reconciliation with the de- 
posed king. But during the eleven eventful years which followed 
the framing of that celebrated formula, the circle of English ideas 
had been rapidly widening. The Divine Spirit through His Word, 
had been speaking in thousands of listening ears, and awakening a 
tense of the grandeur of man's intellectual and moral nature, and a 
conviction of the great truth, that Civil Government, though ordained 
of God, legitimately takes its form and holds its powers, by the will 
and consent of the governed. " Authorities and powers," said 
Cromwell, " are the ordinance of God. But this or that species [of 
crovernment,] is of human institution." In the Parliament, in the 
army, throughout the land, a host of earnest, deep-thinking men had 
been studying the subject of human rights, the nature of regal 
authority and of regal responsibility, searching now the Scriptures, 
now the commentaries of renowned Reformers, and now the history 
of Civil Government, — and meanwhile beholding " the Divine hand- 
writing abroad on the sky" speaking to every eye as in letters 
of fire : spare the tyrant no longer lest he defile the 
land more and more with blood, they had, at length, resolved 
In the grand language of their great advocate, "to teach law- 
less kings and all who so much adore them, that not mortal man 
or his imperious will, but justice is the only irue sovereign and 
supreme majesty upon earth." To this conclusion had early come 
the sagacious, bold-hearted Ironsides accustomed, as Baxter relates, 
to discuss freely, with their bibles in their hands, the gravest ques- 
tions pertaining to their religious and civil rights. To this conclu- 
sion the machinations of the pitied and indulged tyrant 
had driven one by one, the great loaders, Ireton, Harrison, Goffe, 
Cromwell, and with them, a vast and increasing multilude in nearly 
all the counties — especially Yorkshire, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire, 
the old and peculiar abode of the brave and the free ; and those 
profound and deep-read minds Cook, Bradshaw, Martyn, and 
Milton. The magnates of the army, we know, had been reluctant to 
deal with Charles as, they were convinced, his crimes) and the public 



safety required. We may well believe that the potent illusion of 
the sacredness of kings did not easily lose its hold even upon minds 
that saw clearly the folly and wickedness of the veneration with 
which mortals wearing crowns were then so generally regarded. Old 
currents of feeling could not be brought at once to flow strongly in 
the channels of a new conviction. The imagination could not 
easily be disenchanted of the images of grandeur and glory asso- 
ciated with royalty ; and the awful shades of monarchs who had 
given lustre to ages long by-gone, would seem, in spite of Reason, to 
rise like guardian spirits around the tottering throne, majestically 
confronting and even rebuking the protective Justice of a bleeding 
Nation, now frowning upon their guilty son. 

It was not till they had seen their leniency opening a grave to all 
their best hopes, and heard the cry of justice borne to their ears, on 
the four winds, mingled with the roar of a realm convulsed anew, 
that those strong-hearted leaders, near the close of their famous 
three-days-prayer-meeting* decided, " that it was their duty, if ever 

*D'Aubigne who (in his "Vindication of Cromwell,") "must lament that 
even the majesty of the throne could not protect a guilty prince" ! p. 96 ; and 
who puts the punishment of "the despot" (Charles,) beheaded for his crimes in 
the same category with " the death of the heretic" (Servetus,) burnt for his 
opinions ! p. 97, makes an apology for Cromwell, from which (as from some 
other parts of this writer's "Vindication") he deserves to be vindicated D'Aubig- 
ne attributes Cromwell's signing the death-warrant of Charles, to "his assum- 
ing for the mainspring of his actions, those inward impulses which he ascribed to 
God, in preference to the explicit commands of the Holy Scriptures" ; adding 
that "he believed in what has been denominated " a particular faith," p. 92. 

Now let it be observed, in the first place, that there is really no direct or even 
indirect reliable evidence, (for what is said in Calamy's Life of Howe, proves 
nothing to the purpose) that Cromwell held any doctrine, or was under the practi- 
cal influence of any theory which led him to obey " inward impulses in preference 
to the explicit commands of the Holy Scriptures." 

Undoubtedly he sought wisdom of God, (James I. 5-8) and used strong ex- 
pressions when speaking of spiritual guidance, but no stronger than did Milton, 
Owen, and even sometimes John Howe, who once preached against the doctrine, 
of a " particular faith" in the presence of the Protector ; or than have many, in 
more modern times, who, nevertheless, revered and studied the word of God, as 
at once, the grand medium and test of spiritual illumination. To say nothing of 
the consummate practical wisdom which his very enemies have generally 
conceded to him, it may be confidently affirmed that few men have ever searched 
the Scriptures more diligently or have, whether in public or in private, more con- 
stantly deferred to their authority 7 . 

Let it also be especially noted! that in the very meeting in which it was resolved 
to call Charles to account for his crimes, Cromwell urged all there to " a thorough 
consideration of their actions" public and private, — duly weighing each of them 
with their grounds, rules and ends as near as they could,"; and that he and all tht. 
rest wept bitterly in view of their carnal consultations" [the previous year] with 
their own icisdom and not with the word of the Lord which only [they now de- 
clared] IS A WAY OF WISDOM, STRENGTH AND SAFETY ; AND ALL BESIDE IT ARE WAYS 

of snares." So testifies one who was present at the meeting. See Adjutant 
General Allen's Account of the Three-Days-Prayer-Meeting, quoted by Carlyle. 
It is obvious from Cromwell's letter to Col. Robert Hammond (25th Nov. 
1648) ; from speeches of Ireton and others quoted by Clarendon; from the re- 
marks of Cook and Bradshaw at the king's trial ; as well as from Milton's De- 
fences, that these men had studied this great question most profoundly and 
thoroughly with the best lights of History, and of Natural and Revealed Law. 



86 

the Lord brought them back again in peace" from the Second Civil 
War " to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to account" for his 
manifold crimes. 

The attempt therefore of the Scottish leaders in 1649, to fasten 
upon Cromwell and his coadjutors, the charge of bad faith in re- 
nouncing the Stuarts and establishing the Commonwealth, because 
at an earlier stage of the struggle, they had professed a conditional 
willingness to honor the king, was very much like the endeavor of 
the American Tories in 1776, to brand Washington and his associates 
as perfidious, because, in former years, they had repeatedly made 
strong professions of loyalty to George III. The language which 
the transcendent genius of Webster, has put in the mouth of John 
Adams when advocating the Declaration of Independence, needs 
but a slight change to express the very sentiments avowed by Crom- 
well and other English patriots at the opening of the year 1649. " It 
is true indeed that in the beginning we aimed not at the overthrow 
of monarchy. But there's a Divinity which shapes our ends. The 
injustice of the king, has driven us to arms ; and blinded to his 
own interest for our good, he has obstinately persisted, till liberty 
is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it and it is 
ours." 

Another, and doubtless Cromwell's greatest offence in the eyes of 
the Scottish Kirk, was his having defeated the attempt to make 
Presbyterianism the established and dominant Religion of the 
English State. 

For this more than all things else, he had for years> been re- 
proached by leading Presbyterians both in England and Scotland. 
On occount of this, a majority of the Presbyterian clergy of London 
had been clamorous for a reconciliation with Charles I., and had 
helped to swell the "dismal groan" uttered when justice was done 
upon him, after their own repeated declaration that he was "a tyrant, 
a traitor and a murderer." 

Yet for this especially, ought Presbyterians to honor Cromwell. 
From regard to the fame of Presbyterianism as well as to the rights 
of other systems, I rejoice that it was not established as the State 

If they prayed for spiritual illumination, it was while using all the appointed 
means of knowledge. 

Lieutenant General Drummond who had fought on the king's side, happened, 
says Bishop Burnet, to be with Cromwell when the Commissioners sent from 
Scotland to protest against the putting the king to death, ramc to argue the matter 
loith hi?n. Cromwell bade him stay and hear the conference, which he did. 
After they had stated all their objections, Cromwell replied in a long discourse on 
the nature of the regal power and on the stipulations of the Solemn League 
and Covenant" ; and "had plainly the better ok them" said Drummond 

" AT THEIR OWN WEAPON AND UPON THEIR OWN PRINCIPLES." 

Burnet Hist, of his Own Time p. 37. 

Jt is quite plain therefore, that Cromwell " assumed" no such " mainspring of 
his actions" in general, or of this action in particular, as D'Aubigne has very rashly 
and quite needlessly attributed to him. Indeed, upon the subject of "guilty princes" 
and the " majesty of thrones" this amiable writer's own sentiments stand in far 
greater need of vindication or rather of correction than Cromwell's. 



87 

Religion of England. It was poorly adapted for formal and out- 
ward union with the State. It was fastened in such union unnatural, 
upon one kingdom in the British Empire and that was one too many. 
Indeed the Church of Christ — including, and I may say, specially 
denoting the embodied Spirit and Moral Power of Christ — cannot 
undergo such an unhallowed connection. Her very visibility consists 
less in her few spiritualized rites and ceremonies, than in her fruits 
of righteousness — in her love to God and Man, wherewith she goes 
forth encircling the earth with the knowledge and glory of the 
Father of Lights. Pure Christianity, then, has no form nor habili- 
ments fitting her for union with the State in any country under 
heaven. The body which men give her, when they unite her to the 
State, is mostly not her own. They take what they denominate the 
Church, and fasten this to the body of the State ; and then throw 
around it the pride, the pomp, the dishonoring drapery of earth ; 
but the vital, heavenly spirit is not present. What remains, is but 
an ecclesiastical corpse reposing in state. The only connection, 
which ought to be desired between our Religion and the civil 
institutions of any country, is like the relation between water- 
courses and thrifty willows; between a pure, bracing air, and the 
health and longevity of those who breathe it; between the dew of 
Hermon and its vesture of everliving green. 

All honor then to the memory of the large-hearted man who, in 
such an age, was willing to grant the liberty of conscience which 
he claimed ! It was in reply to those who accused Cromwell and 
his compatriots of breaking the Covenant, by " laboring to establish 
by law, a universal toleration of all religions" that Milton said (in 
1649) : "To extirpate popery, prelacy, heresy, schism, profaneness 
and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound doctrine and the 
power of the godliness, can be no work of the civil sword, but of 
the spiritual which is the word of God." It was in defence of a 
principle which Cromwell not only avowed, but through evil as well 
as good report, strenuously illustrated and maintained by correspond- 
ing action, that the same great advocate of free thought, had 
declared five years earlier :* " Methinks I see, in my mind, a noble 
and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after 
sleep and shaking her invincible locks : methinks I see her as 
an eagle muing her mighty youth and kindling her undazzled 
eyes at the full mid-day beam ; purging and unsealing her long 
abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance ; while the 
whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love 

* See Milton's Areopagitica : A speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Print- 
ing : [or as we should say, for the Liberty of the Press.] To the Parliament of 
England" 1644. 1 he Cause of the Parliament was now [by the victory of Naseby] 
triumphant. Yet unhappily, the ultra Covenanters, feeling a strong desire to es- 
tablish a Presbyterian Uniformity and entertaining a morbid horror of Sects in 
general, and a fearful jealousy of the Independents in particular, very unwisely 
indulged the disposition to check the freedom of the pulpit, and also of the press. 
This was the immediate occasion of this splendid vindication of that freedom by 
Milton. 



88 

the twilight, flutter about amazed at what she means, and in iheir 
envious gabble, would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms, 
* * * And now the time in special is, by privilege, to write 
and speak what may help to the further discussing of mat- 
ters in agitation. The temple" of Janus with his two contro- 
versal faces, might now not unsignificantly be set open. And though 
all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so 
Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibit- 
ing, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple ; 
who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encoun- 
ter ? * * For who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the 
Almighty ; she needs no policies nor stratagems nor licensings, to 
make her victorious ; those are the shifts and the defences that Error 
uses against her power." 

The circumstances in which Cromwell acted for liberty of thought, 
were far more trying than those in which the great scholar and poet 
wrote. Whilst performing the most dangerous and difficult parts in 
the tremendous drama of England's Great Revolution, — as a Mem- 
ber of Parliament, as the controling Genius of the Army, the Sub- 
verter of the Monarchy, the Restorer of Order and the enthroned 
Protector ^he was the same bold, ardent, self-sacrificing defender of 
the liberty of conscience. To the Scotch Clergy (in 1650,) he 
said : " Your pretended fear lest error should step in, is like the 
man who should keep all the wine out of a country, lest men should 
be drunk. It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to 

DEPRIVE A MAN OF HIS NATURAL LIRERTY UPON A SUPPOSITION HE 

may abuse it. When he doth abuse it, judge. Stop such a man's mouth 
by sound words which connot be gainsaid. If he speaks blasphe- 
mously or to the disturbance of the public peace, let the civil Magis- 
trate punish him ; if truly, rejoice in the truth." 

In a speech delivered (Sept. 12th 1654) to the First Protectorate 
Parliament, we find him thus defending his liberality to the various 
sects, in opposition to exclusionists still numerous and hostile. " Is 
not Liberty of Conscience a fundamentall So long as there is 
Liberty of Conscience for the Supreme Magistrate to exercise his 
conscience in erecting what form of Church Government he is 
satisfied he should set up, why should he not give the like liberty to 
others? Liberty of Conscience is a Natural Right; and he 
[the Magistrate] that would have it, ought to give it, having 
himself liberty to settle what he likes for the Public. Indeed, this 
hath been one of the vanities of our contest. Every sect saith : 'Oh 
give me liberty.' But give it him, and to his power, he will not yield 
it to any body else. Where is our ingenuousness 1 Liberty of Con- 
science ! TRULY THAT IS A THING OUGHT TO BE VERY RECIPROCAL." 

It is certain from these and many other expressions as well as 
acts of Cromwell, that although in deference to the almost universal 
sentiment of the age — the sentiment that the Civil Magistrate (as 
such) is bound to be the Patron and in some sense the guardian of 



89 

the Church — he adopted a system of Ecclesiastical Polity for 
Ci the Public," he nevertheless, proclaimed it " the Natural 
Right" of all who conscientiously differed, to dissent there- 
from. Indeed, his principles and sympathies all prompted to an 
entire separation of the Church from the State ; and, but for the 
mighty hinderance ofvenerated usages and inveterate prejudices, he 
would have adopted the form as well as the spirit of voluntaryism. In 
fact, he was accused of aiming to do this ; and denounced by disap- 
pointed exclusionists, — especially in Scotland — as an enemy of the 
faith, and a patron of sectaries and blasphemers. 

"With Oliver born Scotch" says Carlyle, " one sees not but the 
whole world might have become Puritan." The mass of the Scotch 
people, intelligent, high-minded and conscientious, only needed a 
leader of commanding genius prepared to hail the signs of promise 
then shining so cheeringly upon Britain, to antedate the era of the 
Free Church two hundred years ; and to place her on a vantage 
ground in the age of the Westminster Assembly, such as she is not 
even now likely to reach for half a century. But alas, no such 
native leader was there. The times teeming with hopeful births of 
Providence, called, and the man appeared not. In all the venerated 
land of Knox, though sprinkled over with shrewd men and brave, 
there was at this crisis no Cromwell of noble heart, mighty in word 
and far mightier in deed, to inspire the Covenanters with great 
thoughts; nor a Milton — 

"Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 
And with a voice whose sound was like the sea 
To give them manners, virtue, freedom, power." 

Noble, glorious Old Scotland ! — I have no heart to reproach her 
severely, even for the false step which she at this time took. When 
we reflect that the great Chalmers has hardly yet [Jan. 1847] dis- 
burdened his mighty mind of the dogma, that a union of Church 
and State, is desirable, we may well look charitably upon the failure 
of men, two centuries ago, to come up to the loity views of Crom- 
well and Milton. What constitutes the glory of these transcendent 
minds — the vast stride wlich they took in advance of their 
age, — suggests an apology for those who lagged behind. Neverthe- 
less the attempt of the Covenanters " to steer towards the Kingdom 
of Jesus Christ with Charles Stuart and Mrs. Barlow at the helm," 
was too monstrous to permit us to acquit them altogether, of un- 
hallowed feeling, in their opposition to Cromwell and the Common- 
wealth. 

National pride, of having given the Stuart family to the British 
world, may have co-operated with sectarian ambition in leading 
Scotland to pursue this disastrous course. If so, she needed to 
know better how to distinguish her jewels from her trinkets. The 
meanest of all her gifts to Britain, was that family. When I call 
to mind her heroes and statesmen, her theologians and preach- 
ers — from Knox who never feared the face of clay, to Chalmers 



90 

standing like an angel in the sun — her illustrious historians, poets, 
reviewers and philosophers — her host of stars whose light is abroad 
in all the earth, I can explain her doting veneration for the Stuarts, 
only on the principle of " giving more abundant honor to those 
parts which lacked." Certainly her devotion to that ungrateful 
House during the hundred and fifty years which followed the acces- 
sion of James VI. to the throne of England (1603), is one of the 
strangest things in history. She did indeed, sometimes, open her 
eyes to ihe baseness and malignity of these chosen idols — these 
avatars of absolutism, impurity and popish bigotry — and treat them 
with deserved contempt ; but, anon, her veneration would return 
and then she would sacrifice or endanger her dearest interests to 
glorify them, and to compel her Southern Sister to bow down to 
them. In fact she treated them very much as some of the heathen 
are siid to treat their gods — now paying them costly sacrifices in 
the hope of a return of blessings, and now beating and upbraiding 
them for their impotency or ingratitude. Yet she always claimed 
as exclusively her own, the right to contemn them. 

In 1650, she was in the sacrificing mood. Drawing the sword 
against the patriots of England, whose cause was her cause, she 
gave " aid and comfort" to her worst enemy. By this false step, she 
renounced peace and safety, and put far away her day of ecclesiastic- 
al freedom and spiritual life; and prepared for herself centuries of 
confusion, gloom and disaster. God was giving manifest signs of 
his readiness to introduce a brighter era of religious and civil liberty, 
than had ever dawned upon earth ; but she accounted the proffered 
good an evil, deeming it a sin to share, in peace, liberty of consci- 
ence with good men, who could not subscribe to everything in her 
Covenant, and who would submit no longer to the misrule of Stuart- 
kings. She helped to mislead not a few Presbyterians in England, 
who had else likekindred drops, been mingled into one patriotic and 
liberal party, with the Independents and other supporters of the 
Commonwealth. She multiplied and complicated beyond measure, 
the dfficulties of maintaining an English Republic ; and by inspir- 
ing hope in the fallen dynasty, and compelling the Commonwealth to 
stand ever in arms, she did much to necessitate the assumption of 
the Supreme Power by Cromwell. After the death of the great 
Protector, whom she vilified for a liberality which, like the sunshine 
and the rain, was extended both to the grateful and the unthankful, 
she sought and was soon permitted to enjoy the return of the Stuarts; 
and then her Covenanters and their English sympathizers had their 
reward. " The clock of the world went back' : seven ages ; whilst, 
sowing to the wind, she began to reap the whirlwind. Oh ! that 
she had listened to the warning voices of Milton and Cromwell in 
season ! To these she turned a deaf ear; and no heavenly visitant 
crying, " Woe, woe, woe," came to lift the cloud that hid from 
her sight, the events of coming years — to hold up to view, her clergy 
driven from their pulpits and their homes, by the minions of their 



91 

"Nell Gwinn Defender of the Covenant," and their congregations 
scattered like sheep before ravening wolves, or worshipping God, 
through fear, in by-places; and no wizard, like Lochiel's death- 
telling seer, muttered in deep, low, blood-curdling voice, in the ear 
of her misguided chieftains : 

" Beware of the day, 



When God's Freemen shall meet you in battle array;" 

or made them see that their mad devotion to their destroyers, and 
hostility to their friends, were bringing sad times of slaughter and 
dismay when — 

" thoir perishing ranks would be strewed in their gore 

Like Ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore." 

Thus by attempting to bring republican, Puritan, Presbyterian- 
ism into concord with monarchy and covenanted libertinism, and 
resolring to enthrone this discordant triad in contempt of all the 
blood which had been shed for British liberty, the deluded Covenan- 
ters drove the Commonwealth to arms. 

While the Scotch were completing their preparations to invade 
England under the auspices of their covenanted king, Cromwell 
returned from Ireland. It was resolved not to await the blow from 
Scotland, but to march and strike without delay. 

Now for the first time, (June 26th, 1650,) Cromwell was appoint- 
ed Commander-in-chief of all the forces raised and to be raised by 
the authority of Parliament, within the Commonwealth of England. 
Even now his elevation to the chief command, was the result of an 
event which he earnestly labored to prevent — the resignation of Lord 
General Fairfax. Aware that the Covenanters looked with no favor- 
able eye upon himself, he saw that in settling the affairs of Scotland, 
the name and influence of Fairfax (of Presbyterian associations) 
would be highly serviceable to the Commonwealth. From regard to 
the public good, he was ready at this crisis as he had hitherto been, to 
forego even the merited honors of official rank. Like Milton and 
many others, who inclined to Independency, he highly esteemed Fair- 
fax for his patriotic and liberal views; and sought by every proper 
means to conciliate and unite against their common enemy, all the 
friends of evangelical religion and of civil liberty, throughout the 
British world. This conciliatory policy was now eminently wise, 
and timely for the reason, that not a few of the Covenanters them- 
selves, were disgusted at the attempt to ally Presbyterianism to the 
notorious " malignancy" of Charles Stuart. Accordingly in solemn 
conference with Fairfax at Whitehall, prefaced with prayer for Divine 
direction, he labored to convince him, that he ought to retain the 
chief command and lead the army into Scotland. "Cromwell acted 
his part so to the life" says Ludlow who was present at the con- 
ference. " that I really thought he wished Fairfax to go." 
Here is a specimen of the injustice which this great man often suf- 
fered at the hands of persons to whose comparative littleness, his 
magnanimity was a mystery. In vain was it, that for so many years, 
he had been cheerfully content to serve his country in a subordinate 



92 

station, notwithstanding the universally acknowledged superiority 
of his genius and the immense indebtedness of the Parliamentarian 
Cause, to his skill, energy, public spirit, and popularity ; — and in 
vain was it, that he now appeared so perfectly sincere in urging 
Fairfax to go, as to compel the momentary confidence of the most 
suspicious of witnesses. When Ludlow began to take counsel of his 
own thoughts, and the thoughts of others like him, it was natural for 
him to reason on this wise : Had 1 been in Cromwell's place, I 
should have desired the resignation of Fairfax. Therefore Crom- 
well desired it. — Happily such reasoning from within, is not always 
conclusive. There have probably been some souls that were not 
the full measure of the mind of Cromwell. 

The real opposition to his Lordship's commanding in this war, 
proceeded from the London Presbyterian Royalists, among whom 
the termagant wife of Fairfax was conspicuous. This Lady, grieved 
at the blow which Cromwell had given to covenanted exclusiveness 
and writhing under the splendor of the military reputation, by 
which he eclipsed her lord, had very conscientiously disturbed the 
solemnities of the late king's trial, by crying out at the top of her 
voice from the gallery of the Court-room : "Its a lie," — "Oliver 
Cromwell is a traitor." Told by the London Presbyterian clergy 
backed by this charming' " Vere of the fighting Veres," that he 
must not lead the army against " the covenanted king," is it wonder- 
ful that Fairfax, though a man of great courage, had too much dread 
of " a fire in his rear" — to go ? 

In the spirit of no vulgar hero, does the new Lord General enter 
upon the duties of his awful mission. Ever observant of the great 
things which " the Lord is doing in the earth," his mind, we know, 
is now soaring and glowing with thoughts cheering and sublime, 
awakened by his favorite hundred-and-tenth Psalm. From the 
world full of commotion, where ambitious rulers in Church and 
State, are striving to resist the progress of truth and freedom, and 
to fasten new chains upon the bodies and souls of men, his spirit, 
amid all the hurry of preparation, is glancing upward, ever and 
anon, to Him who sitteth at the right hand of the Infinite Majesty 
till His enemies shall be made Mis footstool, and from whose Throne 
have, in these days, been issuing lightnings and thunderings and 
voices announcing the opening of the seals of a new order of 
Ages marked with the up-rising and going-forth of the Kingdom of 
Light and Liberty, to embrace a multitude spread abroad on the 
earth, numerous and gladsome as thespanglesof the morning . ew, and 
by the crumbling of thrones and sceptres at the bright coming of 
Him whose " right it is" to reign. High above the outcry of the 
selfish and deluded who are joining hands with their own destroyers, 
to put out the light of English freedom, and hoarsely vociferating 
" Regicide," "Sectary" and "Blasphemer," he hears the Prophetic 
Voice hailing the Eternal : " The Lord at Thy right hand shall 
strike through Icings in the day of his wrath : He shall Jill the places 



93 

with dead bodies ; He shall wound the heads over many countries." 
The leader of the Puritan Revolt, you perceive, deems it no sin, 
called and commissioned as he is, to aid in the fulfilment of this 
prediction. He has not learned from the Divine Word, that a peo- 
ple having the power to be free, must still bear the yoke of oppres- 
sion, from mere horror of using their God-given might. Force 
has indeed got a bad name by frequent association with lorong. 
But has not intelligence itself been not seldom in the same company ? 
And on the other hand, if Intelligence rising into Infinity is invested 
with a purity before which ihe heavens are not clean, is not Force 
too — -ascending into Almightiness, — irradiated with the brightest 
splendors of Eternal Justice and Judgment? Must Might, then, only 
because it is Might, be discarded even when ready to go forth, hand 
in hand, with Right? Cromwell's answer was a speeds, startling 
entrance into the hostile land with some sixteen thousand of his in- 
vinciblea. No commander ever better understood the value of time. 
Napoleon himself was never more anxious t"> open a campaign and 
close it at once " with a clap of thunder" that would confound the 
pride and crush the hopes of an enemy. Brief war and long peace 
was the desire of Cromwell. But the Scots under cautious David 
Lesley, took care, though greatly superior in number, not to meet 
the English in the open field. And the Scottish leaders, meanwhile, 
were at scarcely less pains to guard against Cromwell's attempts 
upon the minds of their deceived followers. Whilst with character- 
istic integrity and humanity, he enforced the practice of courtesy 
and fair dealing towards the unarmed inhabitants, he sought to un- 
deceive them with respect to the points in controversy and the object 
of his coming. With righteous severity he rebuked those leaders 
for withholding his statements and appeals fi om the people. " And 
no marvel," he declared, "if you deal thus with us when indeed you 
can find in your hearts to conceal from your own people the papers 
we have sent you ; who might thereby see and understand the 
bowels of our affections to them, especially such among them as fear 
the Lord. Send as many of your papers as you please 
amongst ours ; they have a free passage. j fear them not. 
What is of God in them, would it might be embraced and 
received !" 

Oliver Cromwell's gloomiest day, to be followed by his brightest, 
has come, Monday, September 2d, 1650. Six weeks with no battle, 
but with overmuch, wet, rough weather, unwholesome fare and wast- 
ing disease, have reduced his effective men, horse and foot, all told, 
to eleven thousand. The utter failure of his supplies elsewhere, has 
compelled him to take a position, near his ships, on the high rock-bound 
peninsula of Dunbar which extends in a northerly direction about a 
mile into the Frith of Forth near its opening into the German Ocean, 
and has a base or landside of nearly " a mile and a half from sea to 
sea." Along this side but gradually sloping down towards the east, 
stretches Doon-Hill j and back of this, are the Lammermoor Heights 



94 

with one narrow pass at Copperspalh " where ten men to hinder ars 
better than forty men to make their way " but elsewhsre hirdly 
passable even for a single foot traveller amid the present wild war of 
sleety winds. On Doon-Hill and in possession of Copperspath, lies 
Lesley, twenty-three-thousand strong, invincible in his position, and 
prepared to prevent the egress of the English. 

Close by the foot of Doon-Hill and rising in the Lammermoor, is 
a rivulet which runs through '■' a deep grassy glen" into the sea on 
the east. About a mile east of Copperspath this glen presents a 
crossing-place though with a pretty steep acclivity on the side op- 
posite to Cromwell. It is along the Dunbar-side of this "deep ditch" 
or glen, that Cromwell's forces are ranged from " sea to sea" with 
their weather-beaten tents behind them. His tempest-rocked ships 
are rolling and groaning fearfully in the offing. To escape by sea 
with his army, especially the cavalry, is now well nigh impossible ; — 
and if practicable, its effect on the Commonwealth, would be most 
disastrous. 

This then is a time to try the soul of the man. The workings of his 
mind to-day are worthy the study of a Shakspeare — of a Shakspeare 
exalted by the faith and unearthly courage of the heroic Singer of 
Israel. If his soul knows ought to summon Remorse with its 
scorpion-stings or to arouse Supeistitious Fear with its spectres dire, 
this is the hour to give them a terrible mastery. Say, thou who hast 
hitherto been so bold, do any dark doubts, any troublesome, upbraid- 
ing thoughts come forth from these threatening clouds, to harrass 
thy spirit? Thou and those Covenanters have solemnly appealed to 
the God of Providence to judge and decide betwixt thee and them. 
Is He, then, smiling on them and frowning on thee? — disowning the 
cause which thou hast declared to be His ? Is He really in these 
clouds — rebuking the Regicide ? — Ha, and does the beheaded king 
come from his long home in " the land of darkness and shadow of 
death " to " sit heavy on thy soul " and cry, Overtaken at last — thou 
God-forsaken ? 

See ; the Puritan Hero is calm as a summer evening when all the 
stars are forth and 

"Zephyrus on Flora breathes." 

He i3 lifting up his eyes unto the Hills from whence ometh his help. 
Listen to him as to-day he writes to the Governor of Newcastle : 

" Dear Sir : We are upon an engagement very difficult. The 
enemy hath blocked up our way at the pass at Copperspath, through 
which we cannot get without almost a miracle. He lieth so upon the 
hills that we know not how to come that way without great difficulty; 
and our lying here daily consumeth our men, who fall sick beyond 
imagination. 

I perceive, your forces are not in a capacity for present release. 
Wherefore, whatever becomes of us, it will be well for you to get 
what forces you can together ; and the South to help what they can. 
The business nearly concerneth all good people. If your forces had 



been in a readiness to have fallen upon the back of Copperspath, it 
might have occasioned supplies to have come to us. But the only 
wise God knows what is best. All shall work for good. Oue 
spirits are comfortable, praised be the Lord — though our pres- 
ent condition be as it is. And indeed we have much hope in the 
Lord ; of whose mercy we have had large experience. 

Indeed do you get together what forces you can egainst them. 
Send to friends in the South to help with more. Let H. Vane know 
what 1 write. 1 would not make it public, lest danger should accrue 
thereby. You know what use to make hereof. Let me hear from 
you." 

How brave, trustful, and sublimely serene is the spirit that thus 
hopes'hgainst hope, and with calm, unclouded wisdom, is devising all 
and doing all, within the limits of possibility, to extricate the army 
and guard the Commonwealth ! 

The noble letter has been sent away by sea ; and the hour of de- 
liverance is at hand. The cloud that has covered the way of escape, 
is suddenly parted asunder. 

Between four and five o'clock as the Lord General is walking in 
the garden or park of a house on his extreme left, at the mouth of 
the rivulet, near 1he eastern pass of the glen, he perceives that 
Lesley is changing his positp n, coming down with his whole army, 
upon the sloping harvest fields near the edge of the " deep ditch," 
bringing up his cavalry from his left to his other wing and moving his 
whole line more and more to his right. 

The Covenanters are afraid that Oliver will, perchance, escape by 
sea unless they hasten to overwhelm and crush him with nis enfee- 
bled, dispirited remnant of an army, where he is. The English lion, 
so terrible half a month ago, may, yea, must now, they opine, be as- 
sailed in his sea-girt lair and slain or taken. 

Their aim is to take possession of the pass and the house at Crom- 
well's left and thus be ready to attack him at any moment- But, O 
Lesley preparing to assail, thou art now in a position to be assailed ! 
At a glance the Lord General's eagle eye penetrates the design of 
this movement and sees the chance it gives him of escape — of glori- 
ous victory. 

The plan instantly suggested by Cromwell and eagerly received 
by his most trusted officers, is, to be before-hand with Lesley, — to 
send over before to-morrow's dawn, the flower of the English army 
and at the break of day to attack, in fiont and flank, the enemy's 
right wing now exposed in the open space, and by driving it back, in 
confusion, upon the main body of the Scots crowded between the 
glen and Doon Hill and utterly unable to deploy and assist, to put to 
rout the whole host. 

Thus has the dreadful cloud enveloping Oliver and his fortunes 
been rent — though not dispersed. Escape— victory — is not certain. 
But it is possible without literal miracle. 

The darkness of a night windy and wet now ahrouds the two 
armies—" the harvest moon wading deep among clouds of sleet and 



96 

hail." This is no time to sleep. Look to the Lord of Hosts, ye 
ever-victorious, and let a flame from the Right Hand that holds the 
thunders, fire your courage anew ; — be wary too and in all things 
ready; for victory here waits on valor, skill, and effort the most 
strenuous. Is it strange lhat the great Commander seeks the 
Lord to night and bids others seek him? If to pray for Divine 
succor now be fanatical, let the wiser ones of a coming age remem- 
ber the supplications of the gifted and mighty Gustavus Adolphus and 
of the great and good Washington on the eve of battle ; and be charita- 
ble. Touching i his fault of Cromwell it will not misbecome even 
the intelligent to be gentle. For no mortal hath been or shall be of the 
mountain-moving class of men — of the order imperial, by intellect and 
energy of will, towering where scarcely once in a thousand years any 
of ail earth's millions can rise — without a soul inclined to associate 
success with some Agency more potent than man's. This supernatural 
ground of trust may be different with different men — with Caesar, 
Fortune; with Napoleon, Destiny; with Cromwell, the Father of 
Lights. But every truly profound and lofty mind, burdened with the 
fortunes of a great Nation suspended on its decisions, does naturally 
in a crisis like this at Dunbar, turn, for light and relief, to the all- 
knowing Governor of Futurity. A painful sense of finiteness — in 
an hour so trying — suggests resort to the Infinite. 

Pray, then, ye Puritan heroes ! But in asking help of the Al- 
mighty, expect not miracles. Implore blessing on your efforts ; not 
1 he naked Arm Divine to give you victory for which you toil not. 
God helps those who help themselves. — Cromwell is neither a God- 
less man nor an enthusiast. His piety fervent and trustful has not 
abjured common sense. He intelligently confides in One who has so 
joined together means and ends that none but a madman will put 
them asunder. Fitting instrumentalities are the ladder on which the 
angels of God, sent aid to us, ascend and descend. Not even the 
lowest round in that ladder can be spared. And it marks the highest 
order of active greatness, not only to devise magnificent plans and 
comprehend them in all the grandeur of their outline but to superin- 
tend and direct them in all their subordinate and most minute details ; 
thus achieving man's closest approximation to Him " who humbleth 
himself to behold the things that are in heaven"; yet numbereth all 
the hairs of the head of the obscurest dweller upon earth. Let the 
knowing ones of the Nineteenth Century listen to their own terrible 
" Man of Destiny " as, in the very hour of victory at Wagram, he 
sternly rebukes inattention to things styled small. " Nothing ! what 
do you call nothing ? Sir, I tell you there are no trifling events in 
war." 

Shall the sincerity of the Puritan Commander be questioned, then, 
because to-night as his mind glances downward from the Eternal, 
through the appointed medium of keenly inspected instrumentalities, 
to the coming victory, he gives the order " Put your trust in the 
Lord "; and does not forget — =amid the roar of dripping winds — to 



97 

add: " and withal keep your powder dry?" It is positively stupid 
to ascribe this to hypocrisy. 

Let any who are disposed, laugh at this association of trust in the 
Highest, with a precaution soessen'ial to be used hereby these men ; 
but when at the rising of to-morrow's sun — symbol of the Father of 
Lights — Cromwell shall exclaim," Arise, O Lord, and let thine ene- 
mies be scattered," Lesley will not laugh as he witnesses the awful 
results ; — as he sees his strongest battalions broken through and 
through ; while from English musketry and English artillery charged 
with dry powder, a terrible iron tempest bursts in deadly fury upon 
his doomed ranks. Oh, the power to smile shall be taken quite 
away from the strong man, when the Ironsides shouting the watch- 
word of the day : " The Lord of Hosts " and deriving thence a courage 
which knows not the meaning of danger, move as on the wings of 
destroying cherubim, sending his discomfited forces all adrift like 
thistle-down before a whirlwind. Nor will he recover spirit to deride 
even while the victors, weary in the chase, pause at the foot of Doon- 
Hill, and sing the hundred-and-seventeenth Psalm, "uplifting it to 
the tune of Bangor or some still higher score and rolling it strong 
and great against the sky." No, the time to laugh shall not be to- 
morrow amid the tremendous rout and disastrous flight, where three 
thousand shall fall and ten thousand whose voices — like the roar of the 
sea — have b^en sounding out their battle-cry — u The Covenant" — shall 
ask and receive mercy of the men who still shout: "The Lord of Hosts." 
That time will be some years hence, when the great Puritan — 
triumphant over all human foes — shall have lain down to sleep till 
the heavens be no more ; and when his affrighted enemies reassured, 
can smile and smile without dread, feeling sure the terrible man is 
dead, because they have seen his lifeless clay — now deserted by his 
mighty spirit — hung up for the revengeful derision of grave-disturb" 
ing Royalists who had been wont to turn pale at the very name of 
Cromwell. 

The battle of Dunbar is over. The confused noise of deadly con- 
flict has died away ; the star of Cromwell and the Commonwealth 
has risen higher ; nd brighter than ever ; and the brow that yesterday, 
was lighted up with the appalling glow of preternatural excitement, 
has become pale and relaxed, and shines only with the gentler emo- 
tions of magnanimous pity , of conjugal and parental tenderness, of 
gratitude to the Almighty and of self-abasement before the Mercy- 
Seat. 

With what humility and affection the victorious Lord General 
wrote to his wife the day after this splendid achievement, and with 
what earnestness he besought his brother-in-law and other friends to 
give God all the glory, we have already seen. It is delightful to 
observe too, that in his dispatch to Parliament on this occasion, he 
deplored the unhappy fate of tho-e who had met their death by being, 



98 

fed, through ignorance and misinformation, to take part in this un- 
natural and suicidal war against British freedom.* 

Yet there was a man or a thing purporting to be a man — and he 
by profession a Covenanter — who secretly rejoiced at this defeat of 
the Covenanters. I refer of course to their Defender of the Faith, 
with demure clergymen at the one elbow and " scarlet women" at 
the other. The effort to wear the mask of Religion, had become in- 
tolerably irksome to the new convert; and he hoped that this tremen- 
dous overthrow of his covenanted brethren who had vexatiously cast 
the pearls of instruction and admonition before him, would so dimin- 
ish their confidence in their own strength and make them feel their 
need of him, as to free him in some degree from a watch and fellow- 
ship so annoying. The loyal Clarendon who knew the real feelings 
of Charles on this occasion, says: "Never victory was attended with 
less lamentations — the king was glad of it as the greatest happiness 
which could befall him in the loss ot so strong a body of his enemies." 

In the correspondence which ensued, the Lord General adminis- 
tered a wholesome rebuke to the Scotch Clergy, for the part which 
they had acted in this pernicious war. With great solemnity they 
had" appealed to " the God of Battles " for His sanction of Charles 
Stuart's claim to rule over the British Empire and to be the jure di- 
mnoextirpatorof Independency and other alleged heresies and schisms. 
But the Voice which answered this appeal, at the foot of Doon-Hill — 
though pretty distinct and decisive — was not quite clear to minds 
which could expect the God of Liberty and Purity to set his spal to 
pretensions so revolting to conscience and common sense. Another 
answer — if not to convince, yet to silence — was necessary. The 
terror of Dunbar gradually passed away ; another though less numer- 
ous army of Royalists was collected ; the covenanted Prince who 
hated the Covenanters was magnificently crowned their despised- 
venerated king ; and the war, in a cautious, feeble way, lasted yet a 
whole year. Tl e daring genius of Cromwell, at length, brought 
affairs to a crisis, by a movement which at once threatened destruc- 
tion to the Royalists in their present position and left the way open 
for them to pass into England. Of this opportunity they soon availed 
themselves, and entered England on the 6th of August, 1651. Leav- 
ing Cromwell in their rear, they made all haste in the hope that 
thousands of loyal Englishmen would, in circumstances so favorable, 
rush to the king's support. Indeed when it became known in Lon- 
don that the Scottish army was advancing and that Cromwell with a 
force numerically inferior was at least a three-days march behind, 

*Thiswasnot a war between Independents and Presbyterians as such, but 
between the defenders of the Commonwealth on the one hand, and those on the 
other, who, from various motives, were seeking its destruction. 

It was no part of Cromwell's policy to employ Secular Force to set up this or 
that branch of the Church of Christ or to propagate his religious tenets. Such 
a means he most emphatically reprobates in the very dispatch above mentioned. 
He had indeed drawn the sword but for quite another purpose — to protect religiou* 
-and civil rights to be enjoyed, in common, by all peaceable citizens. 



99 

the Parliament, though firm, felt some apprehension. This was the 
first time that the standard of the Stuarts had been unfurled in Eng* 
land since the execution of the late king ; and it was certainly a most 
opportune occasion for the popular indignation said to have been 
produced by that famous transaction, to illustrate itself. Was not 
Cromwell insane to suffer the son of " the blessed martyr" thus to 
avail himself of the Ocean-flood of English sympathy moved in his 
favor by the impolitic violence of that fanatical deed 1 

If we may credit a hostile witness — to say nothing of Cromwell's 
own cheering letter to the Parliament — he felt no alarm. With all 
his marvellous keenness of observation, he seems not to have perceiv- 
ed the tremendous reaction in the Nation's mind in favor of royalism, 
of which certain writers, of recent date, make such emphatic men- 
tion. "He began his own march," Clarendon tells us, ''with a 
wonderful cheerfulness and assurance to the officers and soldiers that 
he should obtain a full victory in England, over those who fled from 
him out of Scotland," Now mark the result, — let those especially mark 
if., who believe that " the spirit " of the decapitated Stuart "ranging 
for revenge," was moving men to wrath in those English " confines," 
and preparing, " with a monarch's voice," to " cry, Havoc." The 
Royalists, who had expected to flow through the northern counties of 
England like a river without obstruction and with the accession of a 
thousand tributary streams, met everywhere not the tokens of friend- 
ship, nor even the dubious signs of neutrality but the most unequivocal 
manifestations of a deadly hostility ; and the reputed heir to Eng- 
lar d's sympathy, instead of being borne on an overwhelming tide of 
popular favor straightway to London, was compelled, while Cromwell 
was still at a distance, to turn aside in dismay with the sixteen 
thousand brave troops with which he had left Scotland, and fortify 
himself in a strong defensive position at Worcester. " This enemy 
is heart-smitten of God " wrote Cromwell on hearing that the Royal- 
ists were marching into England ; "and whenever the Lord shall 
bring us up to them, we believe the Lord will make the desperateness 
of this counsel of theirs to appear and the folly of it also," — words 
singularly prophetic ! — of which Clarendon afterwards narrated the 
literal fulfilment. The loyal historian mentions not only the opposi- 
tion which the invaders encountered and the fact that their force 
" was very little increased by the accession of any English," but 
the mutual distrust which divided their counsels and the strange 
fatuity which marked their conduct as they awaited the attack of 
Cromwell. 

The man who never fought a battle without annihilating the force 
opposed to him, was indeed coming and "at his right hand Victory 
sat eagle-winged." The small army with which he had left Scotland 
was swelled, by additions of horse and foot, to thirty thousand, and 
"many regiments," sa\s the unfriendly writer just now quoted, 
" were drawing towards him of the militia of the several counties, 
underthe command of the principal gentlemen of the country." Eighty 



100 

thousand, as some affirm, were rising in the distance and ready to 
move towards Worcester, not to defend but to drive out the prince in 
whose favor a great popular reaction is so often said to have been 
provoked ! 

The battle of Worcester was fought on both sides of the Severn, 
late in the afternoon of the 3d of September — the anniversary of the 
victory of Dunbar. The Royalists had a great advantage in the 
strength and peculiarity of their position. On both sides of the riv- 
er they fought with the fierceness and desperation of a death-agony. 

Thioughout the struggle, Cromwell, as usual, was where his pres- 
ence was most needed to stimulate victorious ardor and impart pre- 
cision and overpowering energy to every important movement. The 
statement of an old writer is complimentary not only to his courage 
but to his humanity. " My Lord General did exceedingly hazard 
himself, riding up and down in the midst of the fire ; riding, himself 
in person, to the enemy's foot to offer them quarter whereto 'hey re- 
turned no answer but shot." After leading the attack on the western 
side and making sure the victory there, he hastened across the river 
where now nearly all the enemy's forces were gathered for a last 
despeiate effort and where there was but a moiety of his own troops 
to sustain the fiarce encounter. His movements here, as elsewhere, 
were with the skilful order, amazing celerity and tremendous impetu- 
osity which at once rendered discomfiture inevitable and utterly 
ruinous to the opposing army, and made success easy and almost 
bloodless to his own. II to win victory the most decisive, with the 
least possible loss to the winner, be the chief end of battle, Cromwell 
has had no equal as a General either in ancient or modern times. 
Indeed the smallness of his losses at Marston-Moor, Naseby, Preston, 
Drogheda, Dunbar and Worcester — when we consider the numbers, 
discipline and position of the armies overcome and the terrific deci- 
siveness of their defeat — would scarcely be credited but for the 
concurrent testimony of friends and foes. Thus Clarendon declares 
that this last " victory cost the enemy no blood." Yet the slaughter 
of the Royalists was frightful and six or seven thousand were taken 
prisoners. Of their whole army, less than fifteen hundred, were all 
that escaped in a body. 

Their own writers relate that David Leslry, their Commander 
"appeared dispirited and confounded" in the progress of the battle ; 
that " without doubt, he was so amazed in that fatal day that he per- 
formed not the office of a General or of any competent officer ;" and 
that towards the close of the conflict "there was paleness in every 
man's looks and jealousy and confusion in their faces." 

Cromwell at the head of his Ironsides was doubtless the most for- 
midable human foe that any commander was ever doomed to meet. 
The keenest sagacity in selecting the point, the time and the mode of 
attack, the most unhesitating readiness in every emergency, and a 
power of command enabling him intensely to stimulate and yet steadi- 
ly to guide the ardor of the most intelligent, fearless, and independent 



101 

body of men ever disciplined for war, fitted him as no other general 
was ever fitted to lead these high-spirited God-fearing warriors to vic- 
tory ; whilst the most unerring precision in every movement, the 
most consummate skill in the use of every weapon, and a courage 
more enthusiastic than was, ever before or since, kept under due 
control, prepared them as no other army was ever prepared to follow 
such a commander. What Hume says respecting Cromwell's ignor- 
ance of the science of war, is entitled to almost as much respect as 
the criticism of those Austrian commanders who declared that Napo- 
leon's victories over them, were not won according to the established 
rules of the military art. It was enough that the great farmer of 
Huntingdon achieved, with unparalleled success, all he undertook in 
war and that he often undertook what few men would have dared to 
attempt. 

" It is for ought I know a crowning mercy," said Cromwell, in his 
dispatch to Parliament, expressing his gratitude to God for the victory 
of Worcester ; and so it proved in the very sense intended. Here his 
list of battles ended. The " Defender of the Covenant " with a price 
set on his head, was glad to escape with his life into foreign parts to 
pass the next eight years and a half in obscurity and debauchery ; and 
the Covenanters were compelled to spend the same period under a 
most enlightened and liberal government, in a state — as their own 
writers admit — of unusual prosperity; — yet murmuring about heresy, 
regicide and usurpation, until the return of their " covenanted 
prince" with his harlots, his pimp6 and his retinue of scoffers and per- 
secuting bigots. 

As putting a glorious end to the wars of the great English Revolu- 
tion, the victory of Worcester was indeed "• a crowing mercy." But 
the shrewd suspicion that Cromwell meant " a mercy that was to give 
him the crown of England," was a very stupid conclusion. Even if 
he had wished to be king, would he have been eager to teU such a 
secret to the whole world 1 If Hugh Peters or any other person at 
this time, fancied that he aimed to be king, his overshadowing great- 
ness must have been the only ground which he furnished for such a 
suspicion. His relative position and the calumnies to which it expos- 
ed him, were truthfully described by Milion : 

" Cromwell our chief of men who through a cloud 
Not of war only but of detractions rude 
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, 
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed 
And on the neck of crowned fortune proud 
Hast reared God's trophies and his work pursued 
While Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbrued 
And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud 
And Worcester's laureate wreath," 

Nor did the illustrious poet deem it safe that the services of the 
great Restorer of Order, and Defender of the rights of Conscience, 
should end with the acquisition of that " wreath." He adds, 



102 

" Yet much remains 
To conquer still ; peace hath her victories 
No less renowed than war : new foes arise 
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains : 
Help ns to save free conscience from the paw 
Of hireling wolves whose gospel is their maw." 

Returning to London amid the rejoicings and thanksgivings which 
filled not the city only but all England, with the shoats, the music and 
volleying of national jubilation, the Lord General " carried himself 
with much affability" says a severe observer; "and now and after- 
wards, in all his discourses about Worcester, would seldom mention 
anything of himself ; mentioned others only ; and gave, as was due, 
the glory of the action unto God."* 

We have already observed how perfectly this modesty in public, 
harmonized with his most confidential whisperings not only now but 
during every part of his life since he professed Christianity. 

Yet his vindicator will hardly fail, at this point, to hear from one 
and another the inquiry : Did he not refuse to act the part of a 
Washington 1 — did he not become a usurper 1 

The answer is, The drama of English affairs in his day, contained 
no " Washington's part." The age, the people, the circumstances 
of Washingtm were not yet. It. is mere day-dreaming to suppose 
that Cromwell on his return from Worcester, could have established 
a Republic like ours. Not to speak of other obstacles, discord among 
those whose principles tended to republicanism, forbade such a con- 
summation. Let the responsibility of failure, rest where it belongs. 
Whv blame the great Englishman for not achieving an impossi- 
bility ? 

It should be observed, too, that the dissolution of the Long Parlia- 
ment and the establisment of the Protectorate were no hasty or 
unnecessary acts. The period which intervened between the victory 
of Worcester and that dissolution, was as long as from the 3d of 
September 1651 to the 20th of April 1653. The assembly which to 
this last date, had continued to style itself the Parliament, was but a 
remnant of the House of Commons elected more than twelve years 
before ; while the necessity which so long justified its retention of 
power without a new election, had ceased when Cromwell's last vic- 
tory restored internal peace to the realm. 

Yet this fag-end of an obsolete Parliament, now in derision styled 
the Rump, had in various ways evinced a determination to perpetuate 
itself. Finding the army opposed to this determinaiion, it had sought 
to remove this formidable force by disbanding it. Meanwhile not the 
army only but the English People loudly complained of the usurpa- 
tion of the Rump, and clamored tor the settlement of the government 
on some permanent basis. 

Even the splendid success of the war against Holland, had not 
perceptibly diminished the odium resting upon this arrogating body ; 
for the credit of that success was justly given to the men who fought 

* Whitelocke. 



103 

the battles and to Cromwell from whose admirable military system, 
the Navy had derived the ability to conquer. 

In short, the Lord General had waited till affairs were on the brink 
of a crisis like that which the year after his death brought back the 
Stuarts with twenty-eight years of tyranny, licentiousness and na- 
tional degradation. He had waited till it would have been criminal to 
wait longer. Quietly to have permitted affairs now to take their own 
course, would have been tu hazard all that the Nation had gained by 
the recent struggle and to expose himself and many others to im- 
minent personal danger. 

The question presented to him was this : Shall we lose all the fruit? 
of our sacrifices and victories by suffering this odious remnant of a 
Parliament to try the experiment of disbanding the army and of at- 
tempting to rule, with the certainty of being soon overthrown and of 
paving the way for the speedy return of the Stuarts? Or shall such 
a combinatioM of evils be postponed an r \ mitigated, if not averted, by 
the timely intervention of tie only power on earth which can inter- 
pose with effect? He saw the Ship of State ready to dash upon the 
breakers to the peril of himself and of all on board ; and bping in a 
situation to save her from such a calamity, he rescued her in obedi- 
ence to the law of necessity. 

The necessity which he obeyed in the awful hour when he thun- 
dered in the ears of that usurping oligarchy • " You are no Parlia- 
ment ; — in the name of God, go " — was no such necessity as tyrants 
are wont to plead ; but such as sometimes impels patriots to do acts 
which, though not technically legal, accord with the principles of a 
just self-preservation. It was a necessity which he had sought to 
prevent. There is no reason to doubt his sincerity in saying on 
that occasion to the Parliamentary chiefs, "It is you that have forced 
me to do this. I have sought the Lord day and night that he would 
rather slay me than put me on the doing of this work." 

His declaration, "You are no Parliament," was echoed by the 
Nation. Not only so; even his consequent exercise of the Protec- 
toral power was virtually sanctioned by the People. For they not 
only acquiesced in it but assented to it by electing members of Par- 
liament repeatedly under the writs which he issued. It is indeed 
true that some of the Parliaments thus originated, called in question 
his right to the station he held. But how truthfully did he remind 
them that in doing so, they called in question their own right to act 
as Parliaments ! It was certainly difficult, at that time, to ascertain 
the true popular mind of England. To say nothing of the great 
multitude who were indifferent or were swayed to and fro as they 
happened to be moved at the moment, the people were divided into a 
great number of factions between no two of which was there any 
principle of lasting affinity. Thus there were Episcopalian Royal- 
ists, Papistic Royalists and Presbyterian Royalists. But Cromwell 
knew, what all men now know, that these different classes of Roy- 
alists were really separated from each other, by differences of senti- 



104 

ment and of interest which in that age were irreconcilable — that 
they would never cordially co-operate for a month in the support of 
any government. 

There were many sorts, too, of Anti-Royalists. There were 
those who looked to the republics of Greece and Rome for their 
model of government. There were those who desired an oligarchy 
under the forms of a Parliament. There were those who would 
have fiercely opposed any government with a single chief magistrate 
though with powers the most limited — Levellers, Fifth-Monarchy 
Men, "Anabaptist Sans Culottes;" some of whom, however, did 
not scruple in their indignation at "the One-man-power" of Oliver, 
to enter into plots and conspiracies to restore the Stuarts. Deluded 
men ! Little did they realize that that protective ' ! one-man-power" 
was all that guarded them against being scattered and peeled, or 
hanged and quartered, by the revenge and bigotry of those very 
Stuarts ! 

Probably the Cromwellians were more numerous than any other 
single party in the Nation ; and, what is more important, by their 
capacity, their discipline and especially the liberality of their prin- 
ciples, they were incomparably more worthy than any other to have 
the control. Indeed their sway at this time was essential not only 
to prevent their own ruin but to keep the various factions of exclu- 
sives from destroying one another. 

The exigency which compelled Cromwell to undertake the Pro- 
tectoral office, is acknowledged by writers of the most opposite 
religious and political views. Writers who insinuate the charge of 
ambition and usurpation, do, in the same sentence, declare it to 
have been impossible for him then to adopt with safety either to 
himself or to the Nation, any other than the course which he did 
pursue. His "usurpation" says Hume "was the effect of necessity 
as well as of ambition ; nor is it easy to see how the various factions 
could at that time, have been restrained without a mixture of mili- 
tary and arbitrary authority."* — Tt was doubtless to be regretted 
that Cromwell could not save his country and himself without doing 
acts which would expose his good name to the plausible attacks of 
ungenerous defamers — that the only alternative was the Protectorate 
or a train of evils at which humanity would shudder. 

* "1 do not mean to deny " says Guizot "that his personal interest, the grati- 
fication of his darling ambition, was his first care ; but it is no less certain that 
if he had abdicated his authority one day, he would have been obliged to resume 
jt the next. Puritans or Royalists, Republicans or Officers, there was no one 
but Cromwell who was in a state at this time to govern with anything like 
prder or justice. The experiment had been made. It seemed absurd to think 
of leaving to Parliaments, that is to say, to the faction sitting in Parliament, a 
government which it could not maintain." Hist, of Civilization in Modern 
Europe, p. 314 — "His usurpation, if such it is to be called" says Keightley 
" was the greatest benefit that could befall the country in its present condition." — . 
p< It secured the Nation " Hallam remarks " from the mischievous lunacy of the 
Anabaptists and from the more cold-blooded tyranny of that little oligarchy which 
arrogated to itself the name of Commonwealth's men." 



105 

Yet he chose wisely not for himself only but for England and the 
world. So thought one of the most high-souled haters of arbitrary 
power, whom any age has ever known "The circumstances of 
the country which h:is been so convulsed by the storms of faction, 
which are yet hardly still, do not permit us" said Milton " to adopt a 
more perfect or desirable form of Government."* Is the mere fact 
then of Cromwell's taking the helm to prevent utter shipwreck, 
proof conclusive of an ambitious motive? — May he not have been 
perfectly honest in testifying, as he often did with many lears, that 
"he would rather have taken a shepherd's staff* than the Protectorship; 
but that he saw it was necessary at that time to keep the Nation 
from falling- into extreme disorder and from becoming open to the 
common enemy;" and that "therefore he only stepped in between 
the living and the dead in that interval till God should direct them 
on what basis they ought to settie ;" assuring those with whom he 
conversed, that ll then he would surrender the heavy load lying upon 
him, with a joy equal to the sorrow with which he was affected 
while under that show of dignity."! What other Englishman was 
fitted by his boldness of heart, his influence with tne army, his 
liberality of views and his pre-eminence of position, to guide and 
guard the tempest-driven Commonwealth on &o troubled a sea? — 
Echo answers: " What other?" 

It is idle to attempt as does the uncandid Forster, to disparage 
the unrivalled leader of the English Revolution by exaggerating the 
merits of " Statesmen of the Commonwealth of England" who 
could not save that Commonwealth from ruin even for a twelve- 
month after the exit of the mighty Statesmen and General who had 
so long protected and exalted it.f Milton's splendid apostrophe to 
the Protector was no less truthful than laudatory. " In this state of 
desolation to which we were reduced" wrote the eloquent patriot, 
" you, O Cromwell, alone remained to conduct the Government and 
to save the country. We all willingly yield the palm of sovereignty 
to your unrivalled ability and virtue, except the few among us, who, 
either ambitious of honors which they have not the capacity to sus- 
tain or who envy those which are conferred on one more worthy 
than themselves or else who do not know that nothing in the world 
is more pleasing to God, more agreeable to reason, more politically 
just or more generally useful, than that the supreme power should 
be vested in the best and wisest of men. Such, O Cromwell, all 

* Milton's Prose Works II 524. 

t Bishop Burnet's Hist, of his own Times p. 44. Also Cromwell's Speech 
IV in Carlyle. 

X Forster in quoting approvingly the remark of Godwin that the "Regicides 
[when they brought Charles I to the block] could not with any security calcu* 

LATE ON THE IMPUNITY OF ELEVEN YEARS AND FOUR MONTHS WHICH THEY ULTIMATE- 
LY reaped," pays an undesigned compliment to the energy and wisdom of the 
Protector in providing an "impunity" so lasting.^-"Statesmen of the Common* 
wealth of England."— p. 377- 



106 

acknowledge you to be ; such are the services which you have ren- 
dered as leader of our councils, the general of our armies and the 
father of your country : — for this is the tender appellation by which 
all the good among us, salute you from the very soul."* 

To put this heart-felt encomium in the same category with Cice- 
ro's labored compliments to Julius Csesar, or, with Horace and Vir- 
gil's idolatrous praises of Augustus, is to do great injustice to the 
writer and to confound circumstances extremely diverse. Milton's 
life and writings evince the unbending spirit of that other and truer 
Roman rather, who 

— " Would in t flatter Neptune for his trident 
Or Jove for his power to thunder. "t 

But his republican preferences did not blind him to tho actual 
perils which environed the Commonwealth ; nor his loftiness of soul, 
hinder his paying a cordial tribute to the surpassing abilities and 
well-meant endeavors of the great Protector. 

It is important here to observe how limited were the powers which 
Cromwell reserved to himself when he undertook the Protectoral 
Office. These as Macaulay justly remarks "were scarcely so great 
as those of a Dutch Stadt-holder or an American President."! ^ n 
a speech to his first Protectorate Parliament he said : "The "Instru- 
ment" of Government doth declare that you have a legislative power 
without a negative from me. And 1, for my part, shall be 
willing to be bound more than I am, in anything concerning which 
I can become convinced that it may be for the good of the People or 
tend to the preservation of the Cause and Interest so long conten- 
ded for." 

Thus disclaiming even a veto upon the enactments of Parliament 
and giving this body a voice in the appointment of Ministers, he 
merely retained for himsell that place in the Commonwealth, to 
which its endangered interests bound him. Nor did he require that 
the Protectorship should be hereditary in his family. 

" Thus far we think" declares the brilliant writer just now quoted, 
" if the circumstances of the time and the opportunities which he 
had of aggrandizing himself, be fairly considered, he will not lose 
by comparison with Washington or Bolivar. Had his moderation 
been met by corresponding moderation, there is no reason to think 

* Milton's Prose Works II 520. 

t Those who have received their impressions of Milton from Dr. Johnson's 
"Life" of the great poet, should remember that the Doctor is not to be trusted 
in any case where his prejudices were concerned ; and that in the case of Milton, 
his prejudices were envenomed to an extraordinary degree of virulence. He 
was as incapable of appreciating Milton's Puritanism and especially Milton's ad- 
vocacy of the cause of English liberty as he was of doing justice to the noble re- 
sistance of our revolutionary patriots, to British tyranny ; whom he wrathfully 
described as deserving to be hunted with fire and sword and as " multiplying with 
the fecundity of their own rattlesnakes." See Boswell's Life of the Dr. and 
the Dr's. "Taxation no Tyranny." 

\ Mis. Art. Milton. 



107 

that he would have over-stepped the line which he had traced for 
himself." 

The misfortune of Cromwell and of England was that his mode- 
ration, instead of being reciprocated, was met by a spirit in Parlia- 
ment, as absurdly inconsistent in its denial of the Protector's author- 
ity, as it was faciiously blind to the obvious necessities and perils of 
the country. This fact is his ample apology for governing the 
country afterwards as he best could and not as he otherwise would. 
He is not to be stigmatized for obeying the law of necessity nor to 
be held responsible for the existence of a necessity which was created 
by the folly and wrong-doing of others. 

Great injustice has often been done to the administration of the 
Protector by the mere omission of dates and circumstances. Thus 
the measure by which, in the latter part of the year 1655, the coun- 
try was put under the supervision of "the Major-Generals," has often 
been condemned as both a needless and a permanent feature of his 
plan of Government ; whereas it was in operation during only a 
small part of the Protectorate, having been forced into existence by 
dangerous insurrectionary movements and then discontinued so 
soon as tranquility was restored. Thus too the laying of the Income 
Tax of Ten per cent. y in the same year, upon insurgent and disaf- 
fected Royalists, has sometimes been censured as a wanton viola- 
tion of the Act of Oblivion. Just as if said Act had been of force 
not only to cover the past offences of those Royalists but also to license 
them thenceforth to disturb the peace ! V hen C/omwell by his for- 
bearing kindness had endeavored, in vain, to render them safe and 
peaceable citizens, he thought it but just that they should be made 
to defray the expense of guarding the country against a danger of 
which their misconduct was the occasion. The unsettled stale of 
the government, the violence of the contending factions, and the 
greatness of the peril to which the real interests of all were exposed, 
must be allowed to shed their light upon the acts of the Protector 
before we are prepared to do justice to his administration. Both 
just and felicitous is the remark of the distinguished reviewer of Hal- 
lam's Constitutional History, that " the 'res dura et regni nnvitas,' 
is the great apology of Cromwell." 

The prominent features of the Protector's Policy need no defence. 
They have extorted the commendation even of his most unscrupu- 
lous defamers. His vindicators may therefore be allowed on such a 
theme to express their admiration without reserve. 

A prominent characteristic of the Protector's policy was, mag- 
nanimous patriotism. This is seen in his manner of selecting . 
men to fill the most important offices under his government. Had 
he merely chosen the ablest of his personal and political friends to 
aid him in his administration, he would have deserved such praise 
as we award to the sagacity of his great predecessor, Elizabeth. 
Had he only endeavored, by his clemency and the various arts of 
conciliation, to change influential opposers into efficient supporters 



108 

of his authority, he might have been compared with Julius Csesar 
or with Napoleon. But the peculiar glory of Cromwell, is that he 
often bestowed places of high honor and trust upon men of virtue 
and capacity, in spite of their continued and evidently invincible 
aversion to his Protectorship ; and sometimes in spite even of their 
refusal to acknowledge the legality of his government. As Bishop 
Burnet candidly remarks, '■' he studied to seek out able and honest 
men and to employ them." Although the father of Burnet was a 
decided Royalist, yet when Cromwell heard that he was a man of 
piety as well as capacity, he sent to him the urgent request that he 
would accept the office of Judge in Scotland where he resided, ex- 
pressing the hope that he would not oppose his government though 
he did not insist on his " Bubsrribing or swearing to it." The 
illustrious Hale while refusing to "make any acknowledgment 
whatsoever" of Oliver's title, was appointed to a high place in the 
English Judiciary, being assured by the large-hearted Protector, 
that nothing more was required of him than " to administer in a 
manner agreeable to his pure sentiments and unspotted character, 
that justice without which human society cannot subsist. "* 

The spirit of insurrection and dark conspiracy met, as was need- 
ful, his withering frown. But an honest difference of sentiment 
even when attended with undisguised yet peaceable repugnance to 
his Protectorship, was not allowed to deprive the Commonwealth of 
any capable and trusty man's services, in any station in which he 
could consistently act. Admiral Blake was by no means his warm 
friend; and yet this great commander was not only retained in his 
high office, but nobly and cordially aided and honored till his work 
as " Sea-King" was ended. 

To say that in this virtue of magnanimous patriotism, Cromwell 
was in advance of his age, is but faint praise. How few are the ru- 
lers and heads of parties, even in the present boastful age, who are 
not rebuked by the example of the Puritan Protector ! To impeach 
Cromwell's motives by alleging that this magnanimity was the best 
policy, is not very candid though exceedingly common. None but 
a mind prompted by a large, generous and fearless heart, would have 
been capable of such a policy — would have ascended to such an arti- 
fice. Besides, the Protector's course was marked throughout by the 
same spirit. When thousands of "swords ready to leap from their 
scabbards" made it easy for him to vindicate his personal honor, how 
meekly would he listen to the censures, the upbraidings and sometimes 
the railings of sincere but wrong-headed or mistaken men ! When 
the good Richard Baxter in a sermon preached before him reflected 

* Mr. Burke [in his "Reflections" on the French Revolution] speaking; of 
Cromwell's selection of Hale, says " We are indebted to this act of his for the 
preservation, of our laws, which some senseless asserters of the rights of men, 
were then on the point of entirely erasing as relics of feudality and barbarism. 
Besides, he gave in the appointment of that man, to that age and to all posterity, 

THE MOiT BRILLIANT EXAMPLE OF SINCERE AND FERVENT PIETY, EXACT JUSTICE ANU 
PROFOUND JURISPRUDENCE," 



100 

with an unjust because erroneous severity upon his policy towards the 
Various sects, and when too he afterwards said in conversation with 
him: "We take our ancient monarchy to be a blessing and not an evil 
to the land ; and I humbly crave your patience that I may ask you 
how England has ever forfeited that blessing and unto ichom that 
forfeiture was made?" he was kindly allowed an impunity which he 
must have remembered with regretful wonder in after days when 
" ihe forfeited blessing" was enjoyed again with a vengeance. 

Nor was this gentleness exercised towards the venerable only. 
At a time when ihe followers of George Fox bore little resemblance 
to those of the sect who now reside in the City of Brotherly Love — 
when not only their opinions contradicting Scripture and common 
sense, but their conduct outraging all decency, made them intensely 
odious to the whole Nation — when their women sometimes 
practiced what they styled bearing an "open testimony" against the 
sins of the people by haranguing in the streets in a manner which 
cannot be even described without bringing a blush upon the cheek 
of modesty — and when it was their common practice to go into the 
meetings of other sects, with the avowed purpose of disturbing and 
preventing their worship, usually crying out to the officiating cler- 
gyman : •' Come down, thou deceiver, thou hireling, thou dog," it 
would rather have increased than diminished the popularity of the 
Protector, to have punished an affront from a Quaker. Neverthe- 
less when one had publicly reviled him to his face, he resented the 
gross insult by inviting the offender to dine with him. 

Yet the voice of this mighty Protector so nobly willing 
to let his personal dignity <: take care of itself," was as when a lion 
roareth, to the enemies of England, whether foreign or domestic ; 
and not the mightiest potentate on earth, could, with impunity, offer 
the slightest indignity to any British subject claiming his protection. 
On one occasion an injury done to an obscure English seaman, was, 
with his most hearty sanction, promptly and exemplarily punished 
though at the risk of war with a powerful nation. 

The Protector's magnanimity was exhibited, too, in his kefusal 

TO PERSECUTE FOR OPINION'S SAKE, AND IN HIS SINGULAR LIBERAL- 
ITX TO OPPOSING SECTS. 

On this topic, several things need to be considered, in order to 
prevent misapprehension. 

In this age and in this country it works no detriment to the popu- 
larity of a public man, to be thought indulgent or even indifferent 
to the views which people hold in respect to Religion. But in the 
age and country of Cromwell, it was far otherwise. Then to be 
tolerant, was to incur the charge of conniving at dangerous error 
or at least of being culpably remiss in defending the faith. 

Hence on no one account did Cromwell bear so much reproach as 
for his tolerance. Papists, Episcopalians and not a few Presbyte- 
rians denounced as impiety, his indulgence to the Baptists, the 
Socinians, the Quakers and the Jews. Episcopalians generally as 



110 

well as the majority of the Puritans censured his lenity to the Ro- 
man Catholics. And there were not wanting Independents. Baptists 
and Presbyterians, who thought that his conduct towards the Epis- 
copalians, was, in a number of particulars, too gracious. It is 
absurd, therefore, to ascribe the Protector's tolerance, to a desire to 
render himself popular. A liberality so far in advance of the spirit 
of the Nation generally, was obviously more likely to disaffect all 
the sects than strongly to conciliate any of them. As a policy it 
would have been fatal to any ruler of less capacity, energy and 
weight of character ; for, in some respects, it was carried too far to 
be pleasing even to the mass of the army and to the majority of the 
Independents. 

Another thing which should be kept in mind in judging of Crom- 
well's tolerance, is the great difficulty of discriminating always 
justly between acts permissible by right of conscience and acts which 
though professedly conscientious, are so pernicimis to society as well 
as contradictory to the dictates of an enlightened moral sense, as to 
require prohibition under penal sanctions. 

This is a subject fruitful of questions which even in this age and 
in the most enlightened communities, have exceedingly puzzled 
some of the most sagacious and liberal minds, and occasioned the 
charge of persecution in certain quarters. Under laws prohibiting 
blasphemy, Sabbath-breaking and certain other offences, men have 
sometimes been punished for acts which they affirmed to have been 
done in obedience to conscience. Some of the most intelligent and 
benevolent men of the age have censured the British authorities of 
Hindoostan, for permitting certain obscene and cruel Pagan cere- 
monies; and have commended those authorities for abolishing the 
horrid rites of the Suttee; and yet there are millions who put in 
the plea of conscience for the observance of those abominable cere- 
monies and those murderous rites. 

The difficulty of discriminating between acts permissible and acts 
punishable by the magistrate, must have been much greater in 
England two hundred years ago than now. Then many questions 
which experience has since settled, were new and perplexing; then 
recent, cruel wrongs and outrages gave a hideous importance to 
errors which, in the abstract, and under the different light of this 
age, seem more like fooleries than enormities: and then, too, when 
in the minds of the millions, religion and politics were zealously 
blended, party spirit even while going forth into dangerous and 
treasonable acts, usually professed to be doing God service. 

Hence persons of various sects, when punished for crimes overt 
and proved, would complain of being persecuted, some perhaps as 
Roman Catholics, some as Episcopalians, some as Quakers, — al- 
though Presbyterians or Independents would have suffered the same 
penalties for like offences. Hence, too, practical mistakes would 
arise in spite of high intelligence and large liberality. Under this 
head may be placed a distinction made by Cromwell during his 



Ill 

Campaign in Ireland. In correspondence with the Governor of 
Ross relative to the surrender of that place, he said : " As for that 
which you mention concerning liberty of conscience, 1 meddle not 
with any man's conscience. But if by liberty of conscience, you 
mean a liberty to exercise the Mass, I judge it best to use plain deal- 
ing and to let you know, where the Parliament of England have 
power, that will not be allowed of." 

Now here was no intended quibble or evasion. The celebration 
of the mass — involving as itdoes, Divine worship rendered to a piece 
of bread and the assumption of the repeated sacrifice of the Lord 
of Glory — wns then deemed as it now is, by the whole Protestant 
world, essentially idolatrous. It is not strange, therefore, that in 
that age, the most liberal minds, viewing such a practice as not only 
anti-Christian and fraught with public insult to the Author of the 
Second Commandment, but demoralizing and pernicious in its ten- 
dency, should ha\e fallen into the error of putting it in the category 
of offences (like profane swearing, blasphemy, and Sabbath-break- 
ing,) needing to be restrained by the law of civil Society. * 

Such were the discouragements and perplexities amid which the 
Protector nobly endeavored to maintain the principles of religious 
liberty. 

What claims special notice is that when his sway was the most 
unlimited and where he was personally present to direct affairs, then 
and there religious freedom was enjoyed the most fully. When he 
was at the gates of Ross, he was acting under the authority of the 
English Parliament. But when, in a public speech he declared : 
" Liberty of conscience is a natural right; and the ruler " that 
would have it, ought to give it," he was Lord Protector. 

To the first Parliament summoned by his authority he said : "If 
the poorest Christian, the most mistaken Christian, shall desire to 
live peaceably and quietly under you — I say if any shall desire to 
lead a life of godliness and honesty, let him be protected." — Nor 
was he disposed to overlook the rights of unbelievers. In the same 
speech in which he pi.t religious liberty on the ground not of tole- 
ration but of natural right, he said "The judgment of mercy and 

* Macaulay speaking of a period some forty years later and of the impression 
left upon the public mind, by the conduct as well as the opinions of Papists, de- 
clares very justly that if there were in that age two persons inclined hy their 
judgment and their temper to toleration, those persons were Archbishop Tillotson 
and John Locke. "Yet," he says "Tillotson whose indulgence for various 
kinds of schismatics and heretics, brought on him the reproach of helerodoxy, 
told the House of Commons from the pulpit that it was their duty to make effec- 
tual provision against the propagation of a religion more mischievous than irre- 
ligion itself, — of a religion which demanded from its followers services directly 
opposed to the first PRINCIPLES of morality. His temper, he truly said, was 
prone to lenity ; but his duty to the community, forced him to be, in this one 
instance, severe." — "Locke, in the celebrated treatise in which he labored to 
show that even the grossest forms of idolatry ought not to be prohibited under 
penal sanctions, contended that the church which taught men not to keep 
faith with heretics hab no claim to toleration."— Hist, of Eng. Chap. VI. 



truth will teach you to be as just towards an unbeliever as towards 
a believer ; and it's our duty to do so. " 

"He began in his latter years," says Bishop Burnet, "to begen- 
tler towards those of the Church of England. They had their 
meetings in several places about London without any disturbance 
from him."* Even Clarendon's uncandid account of the marriages 
of the Protector's daughters, Frances and Mary, the one to the heir 
of the Earl of Warwick, and the other to Viscount Falconberg, 
discloses a fact illustrative of the great Puritan's indulgence to what 
he deemed the weakness of others in things unessential. " These 
marriages" he says "were celebrated at Whitehall with all imagina- 
ble pomp and lustre ; and it was observed that though the marriages 
were performed, in public view, according to the rites and ceremo- 
nies then in use, they were presently afterwards, in private, married 
by ministers ordained by Bishops and according to the form in (he 
Book of Common Prayer; and this with the privity cSf Cromwell; 
who pretended to yield to it in compliance with the importunity and 
folly of his daughters. "f 

Dr. George Bates an eminent Royalist and sufficiently hostile to 
Cromwell, writes "that the Protector indulged the use of the Com- 
mon Prayer in families and private conventicles; and though the 
condition of the Church of England, was but melancholy" yet says 
the Doctor '• it cannot be denied but they had a great deal more 
favor and indulgence than under the Parliament ; which would never 
have been interrupted, had they not insulted the Protector and for- 
feited their liberty by their seditious practices and plottings against 
his person and government"! 

Many Episcopal divines received "livings" as parish ministers 
under Cromwell's sway ; and although as beneficiaries of the Gov- 
ernment, they were not permitted in public worship, to read the 
liturgy they were at full liberty to conform their prayers to it as 
much as they pleased. § 

* Burnet's Hist, of His own Time p. 44. 

t Grand Rebellion VII 267. 

tQuot ed by Neal, History of the Puritans, II, 144, N. Y. ed. 1843. It is evi- 
dent that the disabilities under which the adherents of that Church labored at 
this time, were due not to their Episcopalianis?n but to their disturbance of the 
peace. Neal quotes also the following remark of Bishop Kennet, bearing upon 
the same point. " It is certain that the Protector was for liberty and the utmost 
latitude to all parties so far as consisted with the peace and safety of his person and 
government and therefore he was never jealous of any cause or sect on account of 
heresy and falsehood but on his wiser accounts of political peace and quiet; 
and even the prejudice he had against the Episcopal party was more for their 
being Royalists than for being of the good old Church. Dr. Gunning, after- 
wards Bishop of Ely, kept a conventicle in London in as open a manner as dis- 
senters did after the Toleration ; and so did several other Episcopal Divines." — 
Hist, of the Puritans, II 158 

§ Bogue and Bennett's Hist, of the Dissenters, I, 69 Lond. ed. 1833 ; Cala- 
my's Life of Howe ; Neal, II 144-'5. 

It is, indeed, true that not a few Episcopal clergymen were ejected or debarred 
from parishes, as incompetent or otherwise unworthy. From Macaulay's History 
of England (Chap. Ill) as well as other authorities, it is evident that, in that 



113 

There was perhaps, in all England, no truer representative of the 
Protector's liberal mind, than the distinguished Independent divine, 
Dr. John Owen, for a time his Chaplain, afterwards the honored 
D. j an of Christ-Church College and finally his Vice Chancellor of 
Oxford. This untiring advocate of religious liberty who imbued 
the mind of Locke with the principles of toleration, not only be- 
stowed most of the livings at his disposal upon clergymen who were 
unfriendly both to the Independents and to Cromwell, but indulged 
the Episcopalians too, by permitting " an assembly of about three 
hundred of them almost over against his own doors. "* 

Towards the Roman Catholics too, the Protector showed a lenity 
as noble as it was dangerous to his popularity. It should be kept 
in mind, that the public and formal toleration of the Papists, was 
what no English ruler whether protector or king could grant in that 
day without losing throne and sceptre. The state of the public 
feeling may be inferred from the fact that Charles the Second, at heart 
a P?pist, never dared publicly to unmask, and from the influence 
which the avowed popery ol James the Second and his indulgence 
to his Roman Catholic subjects, had in driving him into exile. 
English aversion to Romanism was certainly not less intense or less 
general in the days of Oliver than in the age of the restored StURrts. 

Yet in spite of all this aversion and in spite, too, of the subtle 
and ever busy hostility of the Jesuits plotting with various factions 
against his government, he treated the Papists as a body with an 
indulgence such as had never been shown them by the Parliament — 
"making a difference" between quiet and orderly Catholics on the one 
hand and those Romanists on the other who conspired against his life 
and his Protectoral authority. He not only " plucked " the former, 
in great numbers, out of" the fire " of persecution but labored with 

century, very many of the Clergy of the Church of England, especially in the 
rural districts, were poorly qualified indeed to preach the gospel or to do anything 
else requiring piety, manliness , learning, and respectability of social position. 
Verily Macaulay's facts fully justify all the Protector's complaints about persons 
in the gospel-ministry, who "were scandalous and the common scorn and con- 
tempt of that function, " and show that his endeavor* to bring into "that great 
employment, " as he styled it, " men of piety and ability" were far from being 
needless. — See his I and It speeches in Carlyle. — Yet for such ejected ministers 
as had dependent families, provision was made with a liberality which the oppo- 
site party never saw fit to imitate. 

* Ncal's Hist, of the Puritans. II, 306. 

Since writing the above, I have observed that Sir James Mackintosh (in his 
Essay on the Philosophical Genius of Bacon and Locke) says : " By the Inde- 
pendent divines who were his instructors, our philosopher [Locke] was taught 
those principles of religious liberty which they were the first to disclose to the 
world." 

In a note he adds : "It is an important fact in the history of Toleration, that 
Dr. Owen the Independent, was Dean of Christ-Church (Oxford) in 1651 when 
Locke was admitted a member of that College." 

Here Locke pursued his studies "under a fanatical tutor, " as Antony Wood 
says ; and he received the degree of A, B. in 1655 and the degree of A. M. in 
1658 — the year of the Protector's death. 



114 

strong purpose to " remove " as soon as he could " the impediments " 
and " weights that pressed him down " in his efforls to grant them a 
full and public toleration.* 

Nor was this his most difficult and heroic exercise of tolerance. 
An outcast people of a race expelled from England in the days of 
the crusading Plantagenets, and, if less feared yet far more detested 
and unfriended than the Romanists, enjoyed his favor. Craving for 
the Jews, re-admission with liberty of religion and of trade Manasseh 
Ben Israel, a distinguished Portuguese Rabbi of Amsterdam, en- 
couraged by the growth of Christian liberality in the English Nation, 
had for several years been pressing his suit — still in vain. He had 
.petitioned now the Long Parliament and now the Little Parliament 
but never until Oliver became Protector, could he get his request 
brought to a hearing. 

Cromwell testified his respect for the Rabbi by directing two 
hundred pounds sterling to be paid him out of the treasury ; and at 
a consultation of the leading divines, lawyers and merchants, he 
most earnestly and ably advocated the proposal to allow the Jews to 
reside and trade again in England. He argued that the measure 
would be beneficial not only to commerce but to Christianity, telling 
the divines that "since there was a promise in Holy Scripture of 
the conversion of the Jews, he did not know but the preaching of 
the Christian Religion as it was then in England, without idolatry 
or superstition, might conduce to it." A person of no mean rank 
whohstened to the Protector on this occasion, says " I never heard 
a man speak so well."t Nor wes this all ; when bigotry, legal 

pedantry, self-interest and vulgar prejudice prevailed against their 
petition thus advocated, those Jews who chose to incur the risk of 
an unlegalized residence in England, escaped no little molestation, 
through the private favor of the Protector. 

How far this liberality was in advance of public sentiment in that 
age, needs no illustration. It was a mystery which some of the most 
enlightened men of the day, attempted very unsuccessfully to ex- 
plain. They took it for granted that a thing so unchristian, must 
have proceeded from some bad motive — though it was not easy to 
say what4 This need not surprise us; for there are even now, in 

the English Church and State, many dignitaries in whose view, the 
grant of common liberty to the Jews is a very dark affair. Yet this 
liberality of Cromwell, was in perfect accordance with principles 
which he had long held and strenuously advocated. Indeed it had 

* See his letter [the 150th in Carlyle] to Cardinal Mazarin, dated Dec. 26th, 
1656. Also Neal, II 158. 

t Sir Paul Rycaut (quoted by Carlyle). See also Neal II 159 ; Whitlocke's 
Memorials p. 673 ; — as cited by the editor of Neal. 

t Among the motives imagined, was that •• the Protector designed the Jew* 
for spies in the several nations of Europe." — Bishop Burnet. 
Archdeacon Echard fancied that the Jews bribed the Protector ! 



115 

been gravely argued by his opponents several years before he became 
Protector that his views respecting liberty of conscience, must lead 
to the monstrous absurdity of granting toleration even to the Jews !* 
In endeavoring to make all religious sects feel at ease under his 
government, he was in truth but acting consistently. 

It has never been proved nor is it probable that he, in any in" 
stance, authorized the persecution or molestation of any individual 
or sect for mere opinion's sake. He could not indeed, always and 
everywhere, enforce the principles of toleration so as to cause them 
to be universally practiced. He could not suddenly eradicate preju- 
dices and customs to which a thousand years had been giving strength 
and inveteracy. With all his energy and vigilance, he could not 
always prevent acts of intolerance or severities proceeding, in part, 
from sectarian suspicion ; and he must have been more or less than 
a man to have kept his own mind entirely free from the bias of par- 
tisan feeling. But to his honor be it recorded that he labored, in 
the cause of religious liberty, with a largeness of heart and a stead- 
iness of principle, too sublime to be appreciated by most of his 
cotemporaries and too unselfish to be imitated by later English 
rulers. 

He had for his chaplains, men of different ecclesiastical connec- 
tions and various shades of belief; and in his Board of Triers — whose 
office it was to "approbate" or else reject persons seeking the 
privileges of the Gospel Ministry — there were not only some Pres- 
byterians and some Independents but two or three Baptists. It is 
a great mistake however to suppose that his liberality was the fruit 
of an unscrupulous latitudinarianism.t His letters, speeches and life 
show everwhere what were the points of^his faith and how zealously 
he maintained them. The great truths of the Puritan Theology, 

* See e. g, " A Necessary Representation " by the Presbytery of Belfast, Feb, 
15th 1649 ;— reviewed in Milton's Prose Works 1, 422-437. 

t M. Villemain (in his " Life of Cromwell," Paris 1819) says : " Cromwell's 
neutrality for forms of worship, compared with the fervor which he always 
affected, would of itself be enough to convict him of hypocrisy. In that fanatical 
age, faith was never distinct from intolerance ; and if Cromwell had been 
sincere, he would have chosen the sect he preferred to follow." 

Had this flippant " Professor of Modern History " never heard of the tolerant 
faith of Owen, of Vane, of Roger Williams and others who adorned " that 
fanaiical age ?" But he is as shallow in his philosophy as he is erroneous in his 
facts. Cromwell's "neutrality for forms of worship " was so far from throw- 
ing just suspicion upon his fervor and his faith, that it was the direct and natural 
result of them. That faith which is an undoubtmg confidence of things hoped 
for and a vivid realization of things not seen and which, by raising the mind 
above earthly temples and ceremonial shadows, renders it fervent through direct 
contemplation of "the Brightness of the Eternal Glory," tends strongly to pro- 
duce indifference as to questions of form. Even Hume could have taught tho 
superficial sceptic, that " all enthusiasts [and he refers to the Quakers, the 
Independents and the Presbyterians as examples though in different degrees} 
have expressed great independence in their devotion with a contempt of forms 
ceremonies and traditions." 

Vide Hume's '• Essays" II, 79, Edin. ed. 1793. 



116 

were to him no matters of doubt or of indifference. Irradiated by 
these, his mind glowed with the fervor of an unwavering confidence, 
and the zeal of a conscientious preference.* Hence his tolerance is 
no great mystery. A conscientious ruler with intelligent, well set- 
tled convictions, is likely for that very reason to be tolerant. He is 
raised above the misgivings which so often cause the se'fish to dread 
inquiry and to meet it, not with argument, but with violence ; and a 
conscience active and enlightened inspires him with respect for the 
conscientious scruples of others. The " vice-gerent" of the Al- 
mighty reigning in his bosom, proclaims tolerance aduty; which, his 
faith gives him the boldness, to practice. 

It is the ruler without faith in the great central and immutable 
truths of Christianity and with a facile conscience, who will be blind 
to the reasons for obeying God rather than men and who will impute 
guilt worthy of bonds and death, to scruples entertained against the 
behests of the magistrate or hierarch. Persecuters as a class have 
been wanting in faith and in sense of the right. 

Cromwell's liberality was not another nome for indifference to the 
true and right or for dissembled hostility to the doctrines and pre- 
cepts of Christianity. Though prompt to recognize and encourage 
piety and worth under whatever sectarian name or form, and unwill- 
ing to persecute any person on account of his opinions, yet he would 
as soon have appointed a coward to command a regiment of the Iron- 
sides as have chosen a man of unevangelical views or of doubtful 
piety, to be a chaplain or a " trier " of ministers. His Board of 
Triers, though of different denominations, included "the acknowledg- 
ed flower of spiritual England at that time " — men of the highest 
reputation for Christian zeal, ability and learning ; and the Commis- 
sioners, appointed in the several counties, to inquire concerning 
"scandalous, ignorant, insufficient" or otherwise unworthy ministers 
and eject them, were selected in manifest consideration of their in- 
telligence and known desire to have the gospel ably and faithfully 
preached, some ot them — for example Richard Baxter and Thomas 
Scot — being his political enemies. These triers and expurgators 
deemed credible piety indispensable in a preacher of the gospel. 
Without this qualification, the highest honors of Oxford and Cam- 
bridge were considered, by them, an insufficient recommendation. 
Yet it is a grer t error to suppose that they or the Protector undervalued 
the advantages of a liberal education for the ministry. In a speech 
to Parliament (in 1656) he thus commended them: "J can say too, 
they have a great esteem for learning ; and look at grace as most 
useful when it falls unto men with rather than without that addition ; 
and wish, with all their hearts, ihe flourishing of all those institution* 
of learning as much as any."t 

* The slander (not often repeated now) that he used to pretend to some of his 
chaplains that he was a Presbyterian, to others that hsw as an Independent, &c, 
is both stupid and malicious. Cromwell was certainly too shrewd to attempt to' 
play such a game With the sagacious men whom he had chosen for chaplains. 

t The men who preached the gospel in England during the latter half of Crom- 



117 

In selecting his chaplains, he paid a like respect to high qualifica- 
tions both spiritual and intellectual. The office of religions teacher 
in his court, was no sinecure and no agency of solemn farce. It re- 
quired the strongest head, the warmest heart, the most untiring ener- 
gy. Those whom he appointed to perform its duties, were all ripe 
scholars, some of them bearing the honors of both the great Univer- 
sities. Two of them had, for several years, been sharers in the toils 
and dangers of planting Christian institutions in New-England, the 
one* as pastor of the church in Salem, the othert as an associate of 
the wise and fearless John Davenport in the ministry at New-Haven. 
Another whose services he was at no small pains to secure not long 
after he received the title of Protector, and was pleased to retain until 
his Protectorate was ended, and who continued in the same office 
during the brief sway of Etichaid, was John Howe. Do any ask 
who was John Howe? Let Robert Hall, himself the admired of all 
admirers, answer. Being asked what writers he would most recom- 

well's Protectorate, will as a body compare to advantage for ability and learning 
as well as piety, with any other set of preachers ever employed in that country. 
The triers doubtless made some mistakes in "approbating" preachers; and it 
was exceedingly difficult to obtain'a full supply of men possessing all the qualifica- 
tions deemed desirable. But the sneer of Dr. Bates about the admission of 
"ignorant laics, mechanics and pedlers," to livings, is well met, by Neal, with 
the remark, " that ignorant as they were, not one of the mechanics or pedlers 
who conformed at the Restoration, was ejected for insufficiency." Mr. Locke styles 
the two thousand ministers who were ejected at that time, learned, pious, or- 
thodox divines. — D >es not the sudden extinction of so many lights, (taken in 
connection with the character of Charles II and the example of his court), better 
account for the deterioration of morals in England after the Restoration, than all 
that Macaulay has said about reaction against Puritan austerity ? — Let the great 
body of ministers in any Christian country and such a body, be at once all silen- 
ced, and let their places be dishonored, not filled, by such a set of triflers and 
menials as Macaulay himsell reports the mass of tho clergy of England to have 
been in the days of Charles II, and it would require no prophet to predict that 
piety would soon be a by-word and that vice and iniquity would come in like a 
flood. 

* Hugh Peters. 

t Win. Hooke. He had been pastor of the church in Taunton a short time 
before removing to New Haven. He had received the degree of A. M, at Trinity 
College, Oxford, in 1623. and "was esteemed," says the Puritan-hating Wood, 
"a close student and a religious person." He married a sister of Edward Whalley 
one of the " King's Judges " who fled to this country after the Restoration. See 
note p. 56. 

Hugh Peters an ardent and bold friend of civil liberty, was tried after the Res- 
toration, for some expressions which he had uttered as to the justice and neces- 
sity of calling Charles I to account for his crimes, and was put to death under 
sentence to be " drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution and there to be 
hanged by the neck, and being alive, to be cut down and mutilated and his 
bowels to be taken out of his body and (he living) the same to be burnt before his 
eyes and his head to be cut off and his body to be divided into four quarters." 
Like John Cook, Esq., Gen. Harrison and others who on that occasion were 
mangled, mutilated, burnt and quartered under the same savage and brutal sen- 
tence, he met death made thus hideous, not with resignation and peace only but 
with joy and triumph. When the time for his execution had arrived he exclaimed 
" Oh this is a good day ! He is come that I have longed for and I shall be with him 
in glory." Mather's Magnalia, I, 356. Eng. State Trials— of the "29 Regi- 
cides." Bacon's Hist Discourses p. 62seq. 



119 

mend to a young minister, this richly endowed and splendid preacher 
replied: "I can only say that I hnve learned far more from John 
Howe than from any other author I ever read. There is an aston- 
ishing magnificence in his conceptions." Nor was Robert Hall at 
all singular in his estimate of the mental wealth, "the calmness, 
self-possession, majesty and comprehensiveness" which "distinguish- 
ed" the great divine whom Oliver delighted to hear.* Oilier lumin- 
aries of our day, have not blushed to acknowledge themselves the 
brighter for being shone upon by the same great light. It has beer* 
usual to decry Cromwell's preachers as contemptible fanatics ; but 
tha well informed will be the slowest to dissent from the opinion that 
"none of the rulers of the House of Tudor, of the House of Stuart 
or of the House of Hanover ever had a chaplain superior to John 
Howe." 

The Protector's policy was marked with zeal for the enlighten- 
ment AND MORAL ELEVATION OE THE PEOPLE. 

He saw distinctly the dependence of the cause of freedom upon 
the virtue and intelligence of the masses ; and he appreciated Chris- 
tianity with its open Bible, its earnest and capable ministry and its 
various impressive ordinances, as the power ot God, not for salva- 
tion merely but for civilization also — as bringing light as well as life 
to the millions sitting in darkness and forgetful of what they were and 
might be. In a speech to Parliament (in 1656) he said : "I am con- 
fident our liberty and prosperity depend upon reformation. Truly 
these things do respect the souls of men and the spirits — which are 
the men. The mind is the man. If that be kept pure, a man sig- 
nifies somewhat ; if not, I would very fain see what difference there 
is betwixt him and a beast. He hath only some activity to do some 
more mischief." In this and in several other speeches he brought 
clearly to view the leading ideas of a policy which Puritanism, with 
ampler and freer scope, has more fully developed in our own happy 
country : a policy which recognizes a nation's collective Mind as its 
Temple of Liberty ; which rejoices in churches that, like the golden 
candlesticks in the Apocalypse, receive and dispense a light whose 
life-giving rays pre shed not only upon the eminences but through al! 
the valleys and nooks and corners of the human field; which wisely 
trains up and brings into the service of the Gospel, a full supply of 
religious teachers illumined and a-glow like stars in the Lord's right 
hand ; and which honors the Sabbath — not as an occasion for forget- 

* If (as Calamy seems to insinuate) Howe, very soon after becoming chaplain, 
preached a sermon against a doctrine known to be held by Cromwell as well as 
by members of his court, certainly the whole affair could not have been more 
creditc.ble to the courage and faithfulness of the preacher than to the candor and 
magnanimity of the potent hearer who not only never uttered a word of censure 
but continued to hear and honor the gifted divine so long afterwards. Calamy's 
story, however, touching that matter ought evidently to be received with some 
allowance for misapprehension and coloring. If Cromwell held the doctrine al- 
luded to (" the notion of & -particular faith in prayer " — so called), he verily must 
have held it far more wisely than its abettors generally hold it. See note p. 85. 



119 

ting, in low and demoralizing sports, all that is adorable and thrilling 
in Deity and all that is great and momentous in Humanity — but as a 
day on which are shed tie blended glories of Creation and Redemp- 
tion and on which, as in grand panorama, Heaven resplendent with 
the perfections of the Exemplar-Mind, passes in celeslializing review 
before a Nation's entire millions reverently looking upward and be- 
coming purer, greater, freer, happier. 

Those who sneer at the reign of English Puritanism as if it had 
been a reign of Vandalism, seem not to be aware of certain facts 
which such confident critics should be expected to know. The times 
were indeed unpropitious to literary pursuits and to the munificent 
patronage of learning. It was a period of agitating and alarming 
commotion and of unhumanizing civil strife. Yet even in circum- 
stances so unfavorable, the educational genius of Puritanism nobly 
illustrated itself. The Parliament did not grudge a liberal donation 
to Trinity College, Dublin ; and zealously patronized learning in 
Scotland. Cromwell himself, though his finances were not in the 
best condition, endowed a College at Durham. This he did in order 
to promote liberal education in the north of England, bv saving young 
men the expense of going to Oxford and Cambridge and by shedding 
on the surrounding region the enlightening influence of such an in- 
stitution. He gave, too, about five hundred dollars a year to sustain 
a divinity professor at Oxford ; presented some rare manuscripts to 
the Bodleian library ; and permitted the paper for Walton's Polyglot 
Bible to be imported free of duty.* 

Meanwhile what was there in his proceedings towards Oxford and 
Cambridge to remind any reasonable man of Genseric or of Alaric 
with his book-hating and muse-affrighting hordes — unless by the as- 
sociation of contrast? Owen, the fame of whose erudition drew 
scholars from afar to his conversations and lectures, Cudworth,t to 
whose l< Intellectual System of the Universe," the cultivated minds 
of all preceding ages contributed their treasures of proof, illustration, 
and ornament, Goodwin, for his multifarious attainments and 
acumen, styled "the famous," and Lightfoot whose profound lore is 
the source whence, even to this day, renowned commentators and 
philologists deem it honorable to derive no small portion of their 
learning, were of the teachers then employed in those Universities. 
And who were the scholars trained there under the barbarizing tui- 
tion of the professors whom Oliver delighted to honor ? Omitting 
other illustrious names, it is sufficient to mention Locke, Slillingfleet, 
Tillotson, Whitby and Barrow — the worthy mathematical teacher of 
Newton and afterwards, by his writings, the prompter and guide of 



* Whitelocke d. 588 ; Bennett & Bogue's Hist, of the Dissenters I, 70 : and 
Neal II, 152. * 

t That celebrated sceptic, the Earl of Shaftesbury, styles Cudworth " an ex- 
cellent and learned divine, of highest authority at home and fame abroad." 
Characteristics, vol. Ill, chap. 2, p. 64. 



120 

the oratorical genius of the elder Pitt,— all but the first, distinguished or- 
naments of the Church of England and he the pride of the Common- 
wealth of letters. 

If to stimulate yet direct aright the spirit of inquiry, if to bring 
the mind into communion with the great and good of the past and 
present and especially with the Greatest and Best, if to develop the 
soul's noblest energies and prepare it, with high conscientiousness, 
fraternal magnanimity and far-seeing intelligence to fulfil all the 
offices of Religion, Humanity, Patriotism, Literature and Science, — 
if this be the true end of a liberal education — an education for a 
gifted man seeking the loftiest mental stature and the richest spiritual 
fur liture attainable under the amplest and best instruction and with 
duty and eternal life in full view, — then Oxford and Cambridge 
had never before been in a state of equal efficiency. The spirit 
which now hallowed, also illumined ihose seats of learning. It was 
the life-giving spirit of a new era in the history of the human mind, 
incomparably rich in productions which awaken profound thought 
and noble endeavor, and take hold on the things of that approaching 
age of purity, knowledge and liberty, for the coming of which their 
heaven-prompted authors prayed and toiled. 

" Yet a spirit averse to the humanizing arts — hostile to the 
muses" — do you say ? Consider, I beseech you, the circumstances of 
those in Old England, on whom this spirit was breathed. From the 
age of Wickliff to the close of Oliver's Protectorate, their history is a 
sad though inspiriting tale of magnanimous struggle, first and long, 
against high-handed tyranny and insolent bigotry armed with the 
scorpion stings of power, and then and briefly, against foes malignant 
or mistaken, seeking to restore the dynesty of persecutors — the his- 
tory of a spirit fraught with life and hope to free thought, to litera- 
ture and all the arts which truly adorn and elevate humanity, yet 
forced by circumstances to be too martyr-like, too militant, too con- 
stantly strained to high and perilous exertion to go forth in the 
gentleness ani beauty of those graces and embellishments which 
Puritanism enjoying liberty with peace, affluence and leisure in the 
New World, has long since begun fo exhibit as all its own. It was 
not for them to pass away their lives in patrimonial grandeur under 
•the encouraging smiles of kings and prelates, fostering a sweet-toned 
but servile and licentious literature, collating the curiosities of art, 
and sitting with their faces turned to the past, while garnishing struc- 
tures reared in times by-gone and already adorned, it may 
be, with ancestral memorials of Hastings, Cressy, and Agincourt. 
Mostly new men and glorying — not in a lineage traceable to the 
knights and barons who fought urder the banner of the Norman 
Conqueror — but in sonship and heirship to Heaven's King, they were 
doubtless more distinguished for high thinking than for sumptuous 
living; for heroic fortitude in suffering than for tasteful display in 
rejoicing; fordoing deeds worthy to be commemorated than for 
graceful adulation to living patrons or for elegant panegyrics on de- 
parted dignitaries. 



121 

He who evolves and controls the ages — making some peaceful 
and congenial to all the gentler spirits that wait on refinement, 
melody, and beauty ; and some revolutionary and sadly trying or 
grandly stirring with struggles a: d eventful crises illustrated by 
the blood of martyrs and by the self-devotion, courage and labor of 
the strong men who rejoice and grow stronger amid the convulsions 
which appall feebler souls — made it not their special mission to culti- 
vate the lighter graces or to woo the less sober and sublime of the 
muses. It was theirs to go forth and to lead others forth, from the 
house of spiritual and civil bondage ; — and he who reproaches them 
for not turning aside from their high calling, to do what their death- 
struggle and their life-battle left them no time nor means to accom- 
plish, and especiall)' to do what was forbidden alike by the principles 
of their Religion and by true refinement, might as well reproach the 
Children of Israel because, while yet in their exodus and when the 
dust of Egyptian brick-kilns was hardly shaken of!', they did not then 
— as they afterwards did in the "goodly land'' — shine "as the wings 
of a dove covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold ;" or 
because not possessing yet the Psalms of " the sweet singer " they did 
not ape the fashionable Egyptian or Syrian taste and chant impure 
strains to Isis or to Tammuz instead of hymning Jehovah's praises in 
the divine minstrelsy of Mcses and Miriam. 

Men devoted to literature and the fine arts, are too apt to assume 
that it is in their own pursuits alone, that genius can or will manifest 
itself. But such an assumption betrays more of the narrowness ot 
professional partiality than of the enlarged vision of true philosophy. 
There is a time for every great andbeauiifu! work, and for every hon- 
orable pursuit under the sun : — a time when m^n of grand views and 
great hearts, are called to " ride on the whirlwind and direct the 
storm " of revolution, or to introduce new systems of civilizing 
agencies and usher in eventful and glorious eras : — a time when they 
feel invoked to perform great acts, and to make noble sacrifices, and 
thus furnish inspiring subjects for the historic and the poetic muse ; as 
well as a time when their appropriate work is to mould and vivify 
the themes of history, of poetry and the other fine arts and give 
them forms which Truth and Beauty shall own evermore. 

The narrowmindedness of authors and artists who disparage the 
genius of ihose whom circumstances have compelled to shine only in 
other spheres, is quite as contemptible as the illiberality of those 
men of action, who despise literature and the fine arts. Mental ex- 
cellence of the highest order, is not always permitted to manifest 
itself in the sublimities and beauties of eloquence and poetry or to 
impress itself on marble and canvass. It not seldom goes forth in the 
grandeur and light of great and significant deeds ; which — like the 
luminaries in the firmament — may not, indeed, speak to the nations 
in articulate sounds, yet " their line is gone out through all the earth 
and their words to the end of the world ;" and when the mighty actors 
are gone from the scene of their labors, their spirits seem to " return " 
as Napoleon hoped his "soul" would, "and dwell in the hearts of 



122 

the people, like thunder in the clouds of He .ven and throb wiih 
ceaseless life in new revolutions." 

Cromwell and his active associates did not indeed write poetry, but 
their Jives were replete with the very things in which poetry deals — 
with sublimities which excited the admiration of the greatest of poets. 
What was the need of their " building the lofty rhyme," when they 
were causing things so grand and affecting to be seen and heard of 
all men? They obeyed the divine call rather, to do a work then 
more essential; and it was well. Even the muse of Milton, which 
had been so tuneful in "the golden days " of L'Alegro, II Penseroso 
and the Mask of Comus, was almost mute while the Cromwellian 
drama was acting. Then the poet became merged in the reformer 
and patri.it; and he whose numbers had flowed so sweetly, lifted up 
that " voice whose sound was like the sea;" whose soul-stirring ut- 
terances in prose, shook Britain and moved Europe " from side to 
side." Nor was it until the hero of that drama had been summoned 
away and littleness most diminutive had begun to occupy the public 
attention, that 

"In darkness and with dangers compassed round 
And solitude " — 

he renewed, though in spheres more sublime, his poetic flights. Yet 
his muse was unal armed and unabashed, in the presence of Puritan- 
ism. Nor need we wonder at this. For her divine power to 
" illumine" what " in him was dark " and to " raise and support " 
what " was low " and by which 



-"riding sublime 



Upon the seraph-wings of ecstasy, 

He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time 

Where angels tremble while they gaze." 

was but the poetic fire imparted by the same spirit which impelled 
him to become a Puritan — a defender of " free conscience" and of 
scriptural simplicity in the Church, and a bold vindicator of equal 
rights in the State, who could not forget that his was a day calling 
for strenuous and instant action ; and would not sit and sing as if 
those were but uneventful "piping times of peace." 

It is worth our while, therefore, to inquire here, what was the 
moral character of those "muses" who, at this time, as some writers 
tell us, were driven in terror from their old haunts. Were they true 
daughters of the Author of the Fiowers, of the Garnisher of the 
Heavens, of the Attuner of the Soul to Harmony, who delights to be- 
hold Truth and Virtue robed in celestial beauty and giving utterance 
to joy and praise in elevating song? — or daughters of Belial rather, 
whose inspiration was of irreligion, impurity and servility? To 
poetry and to music as such we know the Puritans, as a body, were 
no foes. Never perhaps either before or since was there so much 
singing in " merry Kngland" as there was during their ascendency. 
Then the people neither praised nor prayed by proxy. On the Sab- 
bath and during the week, in the church and in the private dwelling, 



123 

in the camp and in the pursuit of routed enemies, in the obscure- 
hut and in the Protector's palace, did devout minds express their 
heaven-derived confidence and joy, soaring on the wings and inspir- 
ed with the breath of music and poetry. Cromwell who always 
knew how to be and to do as the occasion required, who now laugh- 
ed at "an innocent jest ;" and now listened with tearful sympathy 
to the beatings of some agonized heart disclosing the troubles of its 
"warfare;" and anon 

" into terror changed 

His countenance, too severe to be beheld, 
And full of wrath bent on " the Nation's foes, 

loved to illumine his cloud of care by shedding upon it, the rainbow 
tints of the Sun of Kighteousness shining through the Psalms of 
David. At the sound of the lyre of the Shepherd-king, the Protector 
smiled at plots and conspiracies, calumnies and assassins' knives ; 
whilst he beheld Him who " ss the mountains ore round aboul 
Jerusalem, is round about his people," spreading His " wings " over 
the Commonwealth. 

In the newspapers and journals of the day, it is related that r n the 
20th of February 1657, which was set apart for Thanksgiving on 
account of recent deliverances and successes, ''the Honorable 
House (of Parliament) after hearing two sermons at Margaret's, 
Westminster, partook of a princely entertainment" by invitation of 
his Highness at Whitehall ; and "that after dinner his Highness 
withdrew to the Cockpit and there entertained them wilh rare music 
both of voices and instruments till evening.' * 

The objection to the taste of Cromwell and the Puritans, is not, 
however, so much that they did not sing — for it is sometimes more 
than insinuated that they sung too much — as that when " merry," 
they "sung Psalms" instead of the songs more in fashion at the 
Court of the Stuarts and more congenial to the spirit of Prince 
Rupert and of " the elixir of the blackguardism of the three king- 
doms." Vet we need not be careful to answer a reviler of the 
Puritans, in this matter. Such an objection may well remind us 
that the taste of the primitive Christians too, was sometimes ridicul- 
ed by people who delighted more in Anacreontic and idolatrous 
songs than in the "carmen Chrh>to quasi deo," which was then so 
much sung by the faithful. 

The question returns : What was the character of those affrighted 
muses? "They were the inspirers of the famous old English 
Dramatists" — do you say? 

I rejoice in being compelled to admit tint the Puritans did not 
deem the theatre a school of wholesome morals, — that they were 
so far before and behind their age as to entertain, upon this subject, 
the same opinion which had been avowed by some of the wisest of 

* Carlvle — referring to Newspapers (in Eurton I, 377) and Commons Journals 
VII. 493. 



124 

the Greeks and Romans and which is now held hy at least nineteen 
twentieths of the people in every community blessed with flourishing 
churches and free schools; and that it is for such a reason they have 
often been stigmatized as devoid of refinement. 

Hut were not the theatrical entertainments wh'ch delighted the 
fashionable circles in the days of James I and Charles I, entitled on 
account of their superior moral purity, to be viewed as exceptions 
to the general rule? — Execeptions in one sense they doubtless 
were, though not in the sense intended. About on par with those 
which transported with merriment, the licentious court of Charles 
II, yet reeking with a moral putridity from which the more decent 
of the very gods of the Heathen would have turned away in disgust, 
they may doubtless be viewed as standing apart from most of their 
kind, towering in " bad eminence " The Puritans only anticipated 
the sentence of reprobation which the literary world, with increasing 
unanimity, has passed upon those portions of the English drama 
which were the most popular in that age. Listen to Prof. Wilson, 
a graduate and prize-poet of Oxfcrd — recreating "Christopher 
North" and the earnest editor of a leading High-Tory Magazine. 
Having spoken of certain violations of poetic propriety to be found 
in the plays of Webster, Ford, Massinger and others, he discourses 
thus : " But the monstrosities we have mentioned are not the worst 
to be found in the old English Drama. Others there are that, till 
civilized Christendom fall back into barbarous Heathendom, must for- 
ever be unendurable to human ears whether long or short — we mean 
the obscenities. That sin is banished forever from our literature. 
The poet who might dare to commit it, would be immediately hooted 
out of society and sent to roost in barns among the owls. But the 
old English Drama is stutled with ineffable pollutions; and full of 
passages that the street-walker would be ashamed to read in the 
stews." 

Even Shakspeare's warmest admirers — and who is not ready with 
Milton to extol that 

" Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, 

Who in our wonder and astonishment 

Has built himself a Jive-long monument ?" — 

— are constrained to admit that, in his very best plays, Macbeth, 
Lear, Hamlet and Othello, there are passages and sometimes whole 
scenes which no Christian gentleman would now read to his mother, 
6ister or daughter. We lament that this " myriad minded " Genius 
who was so wondrously at home in 

" The brightest heaven of invention " 

stooped as he sometimes did ; but we remember too, that he wrote 
for the stage even in a day of abounding coarseness and obscenity 
in the theatre-going world, without making ribaldry his vocation ; 



1-25 

- — that he was almost blamelessly pure when compared with most of 
the old English Dramatists.* 

It could therefore have been nothing indelicate or really low in 
Puritanism, which terrified the M muses" who inspired Massinger 
and Ford, and did their best to seduce the genius of Shakspeare. 
No : it was Christianity frowning upon unendurable coarseness and 
impurity, which alarmed them ; and we ought to honor rather than 
censure the uncompromising earnes'ness with which the Puritans 
confronted and rebuked so corrupt and impudent a rage for indecen- 
cy. The voice of their indignant protest and the light of their 
unswerving example during the twenty years of their ascendency, 
prepared the way for a wonderful reformation in morals and man- 
ners. It is, indeed, true that at the Restoration, the aforesaid 
inspirers of the "old English Dramatists" returned with the Stuarts 
and other " unclean spirits ;" and as if in revenge for the terror 

*It lias been alleged (though not often in this age) that the Independents deem- 
ed it a crime to read Shakspeare and that this was actually made the ground 
of one of their "charges" against Charles 1. 

Such an allegation is simply ridiculous. By turning to the record of Charles' 
trial, it will be seen that the list of Charges against him was full of far graver 
matters. JohnCcok, Solicitor for the People in that trial, did, indeed, remark hi 
his speech that if Charles had devoted more of his time to studies comporting with 
his high official responsibilities and less to the reading of the plays of Ben Jonson 
and Shakspeare, he would probably have better understood certain momentous 
duties of his station. But this does not necessarily imply that, even in Cook's 
opinion, it is always wrong to read those plays. An act which is very proper in 
some circumstances, may be highly improper in others. To censure Nero for 
riddling ichen Rovie teas on fire, is not precisely the same thing as to pronounce 
it sinful in all cases, to play on a violin. 

It is true too that Milton — while exposing the attempt made soon after Charles' 
death, to impose upon the credulity of the superstitious, by falsely ascribing cer- 
tain prayers and other saintly exercises to the "royal martyr" — alludes sarcastic- 
ally to the well known fact that " William Shakspeare [rather than David or 
Paul] was the closet companion of these his solitudes." Of course P»1ii.ton did 
not intend to depreciate the great Dramatist whom he delighted to commend as 

' sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child 

Warbling his native woodnotes wild." — VJllegro. 

No : he was merely doing justice to the memory of the "sainted king" who at 
the time of his execution, when, as some suppose, he was about lo die a martyr 
to the Church or England, spoke at great length (without a prompter) on the 
subject of his kingly prerogative and on the danger of the People'; having 
any share in the government, and yet needed to have his attention recalled (by 
Bishop Juxon,) from these minor matters to the grand religious interests for 
which he was so zealously ready to suffer martyrdom ! See note t at the bottom 
of p. 42 near the end. 

It is quite probable moreover that in that age — when the " English Drama was 
full of passages that the street-walker would be ashamed to read in the stews " — 
the Puritans — turning away in disgust and indignation from a department of 
literature so "stuffed with ineffable pollutions " and devoting their energies to 
those high Concerns of Religion and Patriotism which it would have been treason 
against the Most High, to neglect or postpone, did — like most of our fathers in 
the daj-s of the Revolution- study the Bible and Constitutional History and exhort 
others to study them, rather than the plays even of Shakspeare. Can the gentle 
reader pardon such '• Vandalism ?" 



126 

mud ignominy which they had suffered, made an effort — for the time 
apparently successful — to render the last state of England worse 
than the first. Ribaldry and demoniac spite against religious re- 
straint, knew no bounds. But these outrages upon decency and good 
morals, were committed at a time when such things were better 
understood in England than they had been before the Puritans taught 
the Nation to condemn them ; and the reaction in favor of ribaldry 
and profaneness — like the reaction in favor of the Stuarts — was suc- 
ceeded by a glorious series of counter-reactions; — so that now, there 
•is no well bread Englishman who would not hiss at such " ineffable 
pollutions " as delighted the Beau-Monde in days prior to the Puritan 
Age.* Foul-mouthed Profligacy, in the very fury of its endeavor to 

* Macaulay (in the Edin . Review, Jan. 1841, as well as more recently in his 
History of England) ascribes the licentiousness of the Drama and the horrid state 
of morals after the return of the Stuarts, mainly to a supposed reaction produced 
by excessive Puritan rigor ; with how little justice may be seen from the follow- 
ing considerations. 

1st. The Drama and the morals of England had been dreadfully corrupt 
before Puritanism called men to repentance. If Wycherley, Congreve, Van- 
brugh and Farquar were ribald, so had been the old Dramatists, the defamers of 
the Puritans, themselves being judges. If ihe Lord's Day was profanely des- 
ecrated after, so had it been before the ascendency of the Presbyterians and the 
Independents. If profanity, obscenity and lewdness were audaciously open and 
common in the days of Charles II, so had they been before Puritanism inter- 
posed its checks. Doubtless the dissoluteness of the Age of Charles II and 
James 11, has been the more noticeable and the more hateful to every generation 
since, from the very fact of its being viewed in such direct contrast with the 
scrupulous morality of th° preceding twenty years. But it is incredible that the 
state of morals in England became really worse and especially that it became 'per- 
manently worse than it would have been had Puritanism never reproved the vices 
of the rulers and people. 

2d. Other and more obvious causes operated to open the floodgates of ini- 
quity and indecency in the age of Charles II. 

(1) The shameless and impious patronage of licentiousness and profaneness 
by that prince and his profligate court. 

(2) The silencing of so large a number of the ablest and most faithful preach- 
ers of the gospel. See note t p. 116. 

(3) The withdrawment of the Divine Influence to which Puritanism owedits 
life and true glory, consequent, at first and in part, on the alarm and distract on 
of so long a period of civil war, of revolution and uncertainty as to the continu- 
ance of the Commonwealth, and then aud especially, on the sudden and general 
substitution of the means of demoralization in place of the means of grace. 

Macaulay's comparison of the effects produced by the reformatory measures of 
the Puritans, with the effects produced by the sanctimonious zeal of Louis XIV in 
his old age, is unworthy of so intelligent a writer. 

He cannot be ignorant that those measures (coHsisting primarily and chiefly in 
the reading and exposition of the Word of God, with earnest and faithful preaching 
throughout the realm; in the multiplication and distribution of copies of the Bible; 
in household consecration and the various appliances of Christian education) 
differed exceedingly from the methods of reform adopted by the superannuated 
and impenitent lover of Madame Maintenon ! 

The Puritans doubtless erred (yet much less during the Protectorate than during 
the previous sway of the Parliament) in the extent to which they imposed legal 
restraints upon vice and irreligion. But legal intermeddling in matters not pro- 
perly within the cognizance of civil law, was no peculiarity of the Puritans. What 
distinguished them from James 1 and some others in that century, was that they 



127 

murder Puritanism, committed suicide ; — at least burnt itself black 
and hideous in its attempt, without a fig-leaf for covering, to out- 
face and put to shame the Sun of Righteousness. 

Blessed be the memory, then, of the reviled people who would not 
quaff poison though presented in golden cups ; not prefer to" angels' 
food" the garbage served up in coarser ware, albeit commended by 
Royalty and applauded by Fashion. Literature itself is their debtor 
as well for productions of genius and talent, not a few, which re- 
mind us of the dew-bespangled fruitage of the Tree of Life, as for a 
moral atmosphere in which alone such productions can abound — an 
atmosphere like the breath of God breathed on the heights of mental 
freedom and imparting energy of thoughl, breadth of vision, purity 
of sentiment and elevation of taste.* Of them were authors whose 
names, revolving ages are only brightening, and whose writings, cir- 
culating with an ever growing influence and with the power of an 
immortal life, throughout the wide domain of the English tongue 
and passing into all the written languages of the earth, are the 
delight of all classes from the peasant to the prince. The author 
of the Areopagitica and of Paradise Lost, the portrayer of the 
Saint's Rest, the hierophant of the Living Temple, and the Bedford- 
shire allegorist, were all their own — and yet not all they could boast. 
"The wits'' of their day who sneered at them and claimed for 
themselves and their party, all the genius and talent of England, 
have now little more than a traditional fame. Their works are dead 
or dying ; and no one but the all-devouring student and the writer 
of literary history, reads them. How few know even the names of 
most of those once vaunted geniuses? Nay, of the works of the 
two greatest of them — Butler and Dryden — how few now read more 
than here and ihere a short piece — such as the Ode for St. Cecilia's 
Day — and an occasional brief quotation — taken perhaps at second 
hand — from Hudibras? Dr. Johnson himself, though delighted 

employed the power of the law not to promote but to restrain Sabbath-breaking 
and other demoralizing practices. 

If Macaulay were to look seriously into the writings of Baxter, Owen, Howe 
or Banyan, to see what the Puritans did actually insist upon as evidences of 
Christian Character, he would find that his own account of their "tests" of 
"godliness" — such as naming one's children "Assurance," "Tribulation," 
&c. &c. — is too far from truth to be even a clever caricature. Not one of the 
"tests" mentioned by him was ever recognized as such by leading Puritans. 
Take as an example that of naming children as he indicates. Cronwell was a 
Puritan and even his enemies assure us that he was very anxious to be thought a 
"godly " man ; yet the names of his sons were Roberl, James, Oliver, Richard 
and Henry, and of his daughters, Bridget, Frances, Mary, and Elizabeth ! Any 
one who will take the (rouble to consult Neal's History of the Puritans and exam- 
ine the names — (sometimes occurring in long lists) — there given, will see that the 
practice adverted to was far less common among that people than Hume and 
others who drew their conclusions from a few individual cases and from^one or two 
localities have represented. 

* Hume condemns even more severely the perverse and groveling taste, than 
he does the immoral spirit of some of the least exceptionable of the very 
writers whom the Puritans were ridiculed for not admiring. See Hume's " Ap- 
pendix to the Reign of James 1." 



128 

With the scope of Hudibras, mentions its " grossly familiar diction" 
and " the vulgarity of the words and the levity of the sentiments ;" 
and acknowledges the decline of its popularity by attempting to 
account for it. The warmest encomiasts cf Dryden, blushing for 
nearly all he ever wrote, boast rather of what he might have done 
than of what he did; and iheir apology for his servility, obscenity and 
numerous literary crudities and abortions, is, in effect, that the very 
princes and dignitaries under whose patronizing smiles, the muses, 
with the graces in their train, returned at " the blessed Restora- 
tion," would not reserve enough from the vast sums which they 
spent in their debaucheries, to relieve him from the necessity of 
" sacrificing his genius to the spur of want," — that in the age of 
restored refinement, he wrs compelled to obtain a livelihood by 
pandering to the prevailing taste for the extravagant, the 

COARSE, THE PROFANE AND THE LASCIVIOUS !* 

It is time that sneerers at the fancied illiterateuess of the Puritans, 
had begun to inquire: Who, in the period beginning with the reign 
of the First Charles and ending with the reign of the Second James, 
wrote the most that the millions of the Anglo-Saxon world now 
delight to read ; nnd who wrote the most that nearly all count it a 
weariness or a shame to read 1 Indeed the lofty and exclusive pre- 
tensions of nearly all those " wits," bring to mind the boasts of 
surpassing talent, so often made by idle and dissipated young 
men shining at the hinder-end of their College class, who sometimes 
mistake indolence for genius, profanity or obscenity for wit, vinous 
stimulation for poetic inspiration and the disregard of Christian 
morality for gentility and refinement. 

When the difficulties under which Cromwell and the Puritans 
struggled, are all duly considered, we may well regard their labors, 
expenditures, and success in the cause of Liberal Education and of 
Popular Instruction, as most remarkable. They sought not only to 
render the mental discipline of the Universities more thorough and 
invigorating but to widen the circle of intelligence and bring the 
whole People to a sense of their rights and to a knowledge of their 
capabilities and duties. Hence their efforts to instruct the masses; 
and hence too their opposition to Sabbath-day sports and to other 

* Macaulay, who is not apt to be prudish in his criticisms, says of Dryden that 
during " a literary life of near thirty years " "his rare powers of diction and 
versification had [in 1686-7 ] been systematically employed in spreading moral 
corruption;" that "what was innocent contracted a taint from passing through his 
mind;" and that " he made the grossest satires of Juvenal more gross ; interpola- 
ted loose descriptions in the tales of Boccacio, and polluted the sweet and limpid 
poetry of the Georgics with filth which would have moved the loathing of Virgil." 
— Hist, of Eng. Chap. VII. 

Having in former days looked, a little, into the works of Dryden (under the 
impression that they were worthy of his fame) I am prepared to adopt the 
opinion of the accomplished President of a leading New England College, "that 
the most of them are not fit to be touched with tongs" — with the amendment 
perhaps, that they are just fit. 



129 

practices tending to keep the lower classes ignorant, thoughtless, sen- 
sual and degraded. 

In regard to amusements, Cromwell's views were remarkably 
discriminating. In that age somethings which in themselves would 
have been deemed innocent were so associated with others which 
were immoral and hurtful, that it was indeed often difficult to de- 
nounce the latter without condemning the former. But between 
recreations harmless, seasonable and renovating (as the name indi- 
cates), and "sports" — like bear-baiting or like Sabbath-day dancing, 
archery and leaping — sports which were an affront to God and a 
degradation to men, — he recognized a vast difference. He knew 
when to weep and when to laugh; when to gird himself for heroic 
effort or for arduous labor, and when to unbend " and rest awhile." 
Those who know how easy and playful he often was in his inter- 
course with his own family ; who remember the occasional jocularity 
with which his over-worked mind would relax its tension and cheer 
the drooping spirits of those who were wont to take new courage 
from the brightness of his hope; and who recall his musical enter- 
tainments and mark how he discriminated between different kinds 
of dramatic exhibitions, tolerating or " conniving at " some and 
prohibiting others, will not easily believe that he and others of like 
faith denounced those profane and cruel sports, from a morose de- 
sire to prevent innocent enjoyment.* 

g Yet Macaulay (in his History of England) declares that : " The Puritan 
hated bear-baiting not because it gave pain to the bear but because it gave pleas- 
ure to the spectators;" and that "he generally contrived to enjoy the double 
pleasure of tormenting both spectators and bear." 

Now on what does he base this charge ? — Why, simply on the fact that when 
"some of Col. Cromwell's forces " once found a portion of the people in a cer- 
tain town on the the Lord's Day, engaged with " a company of bears " in the 
barbarous sport above named, they caused the bears to " be tied to a tree and 
shot, " and that Col. Pride once caused some bears to " be shot " for a like rea- 
son. — These bears had been imported recently and were kept in large numbers 
in some of the country towns to be worried for sport especially on the Sabbath- 
day. They were kept for nothing else. 

Macaulay seems to admit the barbarity of bear-baiting, but he impugns the 
motives of the Puritans in putting a check upon it, because, in the cases referred 
to, they "shot the bears," i. e., put them out of the way in a mode not only the 
most convenient but less fitted than perhaps any other, to give pain to the ani- 
mals themselves. 

This, forsooth, was tormenting the bears ! — What would the great Historian 
himself have done with them ? — turned them out to pasture ? — or sent them forth 
to be companions and play-fellows of those "muses" that fled, in such fright, 
from England in those days ? — or (as Maynooth College was not yet under way)' 
donated them, in trust, to Queen Henrietta's Romish Chaplains ? — or given 
them a retreat in some old monastery ? — 

The " Colonels " knew, as all Christian men now know, that to put down 
bear-baiting was to do God service To have left the bears alive in the places 
where they were kept for that savage sport, would have been to let the practice 
go on unchecked ; and to have taken them along in their marches and battles 
would have been rather inconvenient. — In short, the spiteful paragragh. in ques- 
tion does no honor to the head or heart of the author of the splendid article on 
Milton, of the brilliant candidate for the highest place among English Histo- 
rians, and suggests the idea of feelings embittered in consequence of rebuke and' 



130 

The Protector's high appreciation of eminent scholarship as well 
as of practical talent, may perhaps surprise those who have not been 
familiar with the evidence that he had himself received no small 
tincture of learning. He was not indeed a professional scholar. 
Yet in the knowledge of letters, he was far superior to some 
■ of the most illustrious rulers and statesmen the world has ever 
known. The poet Waller, his cousin but a Royalist, who often 
conversed familiarly with him, used to remark that he was well read 
in Greek and Roman history. He sometimes answered foreign 
embassadors, orally in Latin. His private library according to the 
critical judgment of Dr. Man ton who enjoved an opportunity to 
examine it, was " a noble collection." And Milton who thought "it 
did not become that hand to wax soft in literary ease, which was to 
be inured to the use of arms and hardened with asperity ; that right 
hand to be wrapped up in down among the nocturnal birds of 
Athens, by which thunderbolts were soon after to be hurled among 
the eagles which emulate the sun," declared that " he had garnished 
his understanding with those arts which become a liberal nature ; 
had rubbed off the rust of his mind ; had sharpened the edge of his 
vvit; had gained such a character as not to be reckoned an ill schol- 
ar " and given proof, " if he were disposed to go on in the pursuit 
of learning, how very able he was to equal the greatest masters." 

His respect for learning is placed beyond a reasonable doubt, by 
the facts which have been stated. Other facts if not more convinc- 
ing yet more striking might easily be given. But I present the 
following only as a simple. Having received from his noble-hearted 
chaplain, John Howe, a highly favorable account of the attain- 
ments and virtues of Dr. Seth Ward, afterwards Bishop of Ex- 
eter and Sarum, with the request that he would grant to this emi- 
nent scholar, the vacant principalship of Jesus College, Oxford, the 
Protector manifested his regard even more strongly than he would 
have done by bestowing the favor in the form in which it was solici- 
ted. Unable to grant the principalship to Dr. Ward because it had 
been previously promised to another, Cromwell asked him how much 
he thought that place was worth, and granted him an annuity equal to 
the emoluments of the office as estimated by the doctor himself. It 
was not chiefly however by such beneficence, but by endowing and 
furnishing the great seats of learning, by multiplying and diffusing 
moralizing and elevating agencies and influences throughout the 
land, by encouraging every variety of mental excellence and study- 
ing to introduce gifted and good men. without regard to their reli- 
gious or even their political preferences, inlo situations where 
they could make the most of their talents and do the best for their 



final rejection by an earnestly Piotestant, Sabbath-keeping, Puritan-admiring 
constituency, who were unwilling to be first misrepresented in Parliament and 
disregarded too in their efforts to rescue the Lord's Day from desecration and 
then told that their latest remonstrance was " their last bray." 



131 

country and the world, that he labored for the enlightenment and 
true grandeur of the Nation. 

Here a number of things promotive as well as indicative of pro- 
gress in civilization, would claim particular notice in our review of 
the Protectorate, were it not, of necessity, so brief. A few only, of 
these, can now be barely mentioned. 

A Postal system, with a weekly conveyance of letters into all parts 
of the country and with a regular intercourse by packets between 
England and Ireland, having been arranged by Edmund Prideaux, 
the Post-Master-General, was maintained on a scale of improvement 
highly beneficial to the people as well as advantageous to the Gov- 
ernment. 

The Protector also made a praise-worthy attempt to reform the 
Court of Chancery. This he did amidst great embarrassments, 
not being seconded as he should have been by the leading members 
of the legal profession ; who though they knew that, to a great ex- 
tent, the proceedings in that Court were a mockery of equity and of 
common sense, were slow to aid in applying the needful corrective. 
He certainly aimed, in this matter, to discriminate between the 
useful and the pernicious, between the true and the false, between 
the reasonable and the absurd. Those who censure this attempt at 
reform, should consider that it was hardly possible, things should 
become worse in a Court where twenty'three thousand causes, of 
from five to thirty years' continuance, remained undecided. It 
was very safe to remodel a Court which thus sickened the hearts of 
suitors in chancery by causing their hope of redress to be so ruin- 
ously deferred. 

He sought to introduce a more speedy, certain and equitable ad- 
ministration of justice, and endeavored to impress on the leading 
minds in the Nation, the importance of adjusting the scale of pen- 
alties according to the real grade of the crimes for which they were 
to be inflicted. In a speech to Parliament (in 1656) he urged, with 
strong emphasis, the duty of amending the laws on this principle; 
and spoke of the iniquity of "hanging a man for Six-and eight 
pence " and yet letting " murder " go sometimes unpunished, as " a 
thing God would reckon for."* 

Besides, under his sway punishments for treason and other crimes, 
though impartial and condign, were unaccompanied with the petty 
brutalities and savage barbarities which had been the disgrace of 
penal proceedings in former reigns and which were for a brief season 
resumed at " the ever Blessed Restoration."! 

On assuming the Protectorship Cromwell " gave the country a 
constitution far more perfect" as Macaulay remarks "than any 
which had been before known in the world ;" and " he reformed the 

* See Speech V (in Carlyle). 

t See p. 21 near the bottom ; and not* t on p. 117. 



132 

representative system in a manner which has extorted praise even 
from Lor.l Clarendon."* 

Thus did he labor as if he had been a Statesman of the Nine- 
teenth rather than of the Seventeenth Century, to found Liberty on 
the basis of moral, intellectual and social improvement. 

Cromwell at the head of his unequalled army turning the tide of 
battle and grasping the wreath of victory atDunbar and Worcester, 
was great, admirable; but Cromwell at the head of a vast system of 
educational and refoimatory agencies, proclaiming that "the mind 
is the man ;" employing, in conformity to this sentiment, such men 
as Milton, Thurloe and Lockhart; Hale, Whitelocke and St. John; 
Owen, Cudworth and Ligbtfoot; Howe, Peters and Hooke; Lam- 
bert, Goffe and Blake; fostering liberal learning; giving scope and 
stimulus to every species of useful talent and lighting up all the dark 
plaees in the Commonwealth with the means of religious and moral 
culture, was greater, far more admirable. What though the noble- 
born mental pygmies of the Restoration made bold to deride the 
deceased, exiled or retired giants of the Commonwealth ? This 
jeering of the reinstated gentry of England, at the imputed foiblea 
of the illustrious men before whom their fathers quailed in the halls 
of debate and fled in dismay on many a field of conflict where — in 
the beautiful language of Leonard Bacon — "proud banners rich 
with Norman heraldry and emblazoned with bearings that had been 
stars of victory at Cressy and Poictiers, were trailed in the dust, " 
was in the worst possible taste. It was even less creditable than 
has been in later days, the merry-making of the restored French 
aristocrats — in relation to whose nobility a witty writer once said 
that the name is probably a contraction of the words, no ability, — 
over ihe ungentility of the men of might and genius who had made 
France so grandly another and borne her eagles from Lisbon to 
Moscow. 

Let the minions of despotism and the smsll descendants of great 
ancestors, have their joy of making genteeler bows and of being 
more at home in the drawing-room than the men who, deriving their 
patent of nobility directly from God, have thundered in the high 
places of the earth and given a new and a glorious impulse and di- 
rection to human advancement. But never let the people of a land 
dedicated to freedom, bear them company in their folly and littleness. 

The Protector's Foreign Policy is the glory of a memorable 

EPOCH IN THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND'S GRANDEUR. 

His reputation as the most sagacious statesman of the day, to- 
gether with the fame of the distinguished men whom he had so nobly 
called to fill the various stations of honor and influence under his 
government, and his renown as the greatest general of the age, 
enhanced, in its effect, by the dread-inspiring charm of invincibility 
with which a long and unbroken series of victories had invested the 
army and navy of England, doubtless contributed not a little to 

* Macaulay's Mis. Art. Milton. 



133 

diffuse through Europe the sentiment of awe with which his country 
was regarded during his Protectorate. Still, his measures them- 
selves, tended greatly to deepen that sentiment and to produce with 
it, a feeling of confidence and respect. 

His policy was distinguished for its simplicity, intelligence, mag- 
nanimity and boldness. Thoroughly informed of what was passing 
in all parts of the world with which he had to do; with keen eyes, 
listening ears and discreet tongues in every portion of Europe so 
that the very birds of the air and the wings of the wind, seemed to 
bring him the secrets of foreign courts ; yet aloof from petty intrigue 
and seeking to be on terms of amity with all nations, he anticipated, 
by nearly a century and a half, the Washingtonian policy of avoid- 
ing entangling alliances with any, and practiced on the principle of 
neither committing wrong nor of submitting to it when attempted 
by others. It fills the mind with emotions of the sublime to read 
the great thoughts of the once obscure country-gentleman, expressed 
in the grand language of the blind but far-seeing Latin Secretary, 
and addressed in the tone of a conciliatory yet conscious superiority 
to monarchs of whom it might have been said 

"Their boasted ancestry so high extends 
That in the pagan gods their lineage ends ;" 

and to observe how the mightiest potentates vied with each other in 
paying him deference. Neither the queen regnant of Sweden, the 
beautiful, accomplished and brilliant though eccentric Christina, 
daughter of the great Gustavus Adolphus nor the young and haughty 
Louis XIV nor yet the prouder Mazarin the acting ruler of France, 
deemed it any condescension to express the highest admiration oft he 
Protector's talents ; to style him " the greatest and happiest prince in 
Europe ;" and to illustrate these words by corresponding acts. 

It has been fortunate for the fame of Cromwell that English na- 
tional pride could not exult over the most splendid period of Eng- 
land's history without being compelled to celebrate the noble acts 
of the great Protector. Clarendon and Burnet, both keen-sighted 
and not very partial witnesses, bear the strongest testimony to the 
profound respect which all Europe paid to him. 

The former remarks that " his greatness at home was but the 
shadow of the glory he had abroad. It was hard to discover which 
feared him most, France, Spain or the Low Countries where his 
friendship was current at the value he put upon it."* 

Dunkirk, on beingtaken from the Spaniards, was yielded up to him 
by obsequious France; Spain was taught to abate her monopolizing 
arrogance on the American Seas and Holland compelled to bow to 
England's naval supremacy ; the Pope was admonished to dread his 
displeasure, " nothing being more usual," as Clarendon observes, 
than his saying that " his ships in the Mediterranean should visit 
Civita Vecchia and that the sound of his cannon should be heard in 
Rome ;" the Barbary States were chastised and brought to better 

* " Grand Rebellion," VII 353. 



134 

terms and even the Sublime Porte, then far more "sublime" than 
now, was effectually addressed in the style of dignified remon- 
strance. 

His embassadors at Stockholm, at the Hague, at Paris and at the 
other capitals of Europe, were treated with a respect, with an awe, 
such as had never been shown to the foreign ministers even of 
Elizabeth — such as some of them remembered with sadness amid 
the humiliations of the following reign. Sir Wm. Lockhart '"told 
me," says Bishop Burnet, " that when he was sent afterwards em- 
bassador " to the French court "by king Charles, he found he had 
nothing of that regard that was paid him in Cromwell's time."* At 
no other time in her history, whether after the victory of Cressy or 
of Agincourt, after the discomfiture of the Spanish Armada or after 
the overthrow of Napoleon, has England stood relatively so high 
and commanded such universal obeisance. In wealth, in population 
and other elements of national greatness, she has indeed made vast 
progress since the days of Cromwell. But so too have France, 
Austria, Prussia. Peter the Great had not then introduced Russia 
to the notice of the world as one of the leading powers of the earth 
nor had the mighty American Republic displayed on every sea and 
in every clime, her Stars and Stripes and soaring Eagle, to excite 
the admiration and jealousy of the transatlantic monarchies. 

Nor should it be forgotten that it was when Cromwell's influence 
was paramount in the English government, the Navigation Act 
was adoptedf ; and that t© him, more than to any other man, Great 
Britain is indebted tor the introduction and especially lor the en- 
ergetic establishment of a policy which was the foundation of her 
commercial and naval grandeur. 

What renders it peculiarly delightful to contemplate the vast in- 
fluence of the Protector over the princes and rulers of Europe, is 
that it was exercised most beneficently. He sought not to make 
his, a name of terror with which mothers might frighten their 
wayward children or the agents of oppression crush the hearts of 
suffering millions, but a name rather that should be pronounced with 
affectionate veneration by the persecuted of all Christendom ; and 
carry hope and joy to the hearts of afflicted Protestants in the re- 
motest corners and the deepest recesses of Europe. It is less 
pleasing to learn that even the French used to say : " Cardinal 
Mazarin lears Cromwell more than he does the devil," than it is to 
know that this same Cardinal, against his pride and his sectarian 
zeal, was driven by his fear of the mighty Protector, to interpose, 
to good effect, for the protection of the Protestants in the valleys of 
Piedmont, then suffering persecution in its most frightful forms, at 
the hand of the Duke of Savoy. It was much that the Protector 
on hearing of the slaughter of so many of that suffering people and 
of the cruelties and privations to which the survivors were exposed, 

* Burnet's Hist, of his Own Times, p. 50. 

* Clarendon's Grand Rebellion, VII 31 ; Hume's Hist, of Eng. 



135 

sent them two thousand pounds sterling from his own purse and ap- 
pointed a day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer and a general 
Collection throughout England, in their behalf ; it was more that 
the influence of his awe-inspiring name and the eloquent advocacy 
of his renowned Latin Secretary, were employed to arouse Prot- 
estant Europe and to constrain no small part of Papal Europe, 
for their defence and security.* Yet in making himself the guardian 
of the Protestant cause, he became no armed propagandist. With 
him the sword might be rightfully used to protect Religion, but not 
to propagate it; to restrain wicked men from violence and crime 
but not to convert them to his faith. He desired to build up and 
extend Protestantism; yet not as a sectarianism but as the true 
Catholicism deriving its life and support from the word and Spirit oi 
God and going forth with a charity towards all men, as expansive as 
the benevolence of Christ. At the very time when he was pressing 
Cardinal Mazarin to stay the persecution in Piedmont, he was doing 
his utmost, as we have seen, to secure a liberal toleration for the 
Roman Catholics of England. 

Nothing now seemed wanting to ensure the prosperity of Engl.md 

BUT THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT ON SOME PERMANENT 
BASIS. 

Early in the year 1657 it was proposed by Parliament to make 
Cromwell king. A crown and especially the crown of so great an 
empire, is apt to be viewed as one of the most splendid prizes ever 
presented to ahuman mind ; and it is very natural for men to suspect 
that almost any person however patriotic and humble in spirit, would 
be eager to obtain an object so alluring. Many have been inclined 
to accuse Cromwell of ambition because on this occasion, he did 
not instantly repel the suggestion, instead of declining the proposed 
honor after consultation and reflection. 

In judging of his motives, however, it is but just to remember 
that, at this time, it would have been impossible for him to establ sh 
a republican government in England. This impossibility is often 
admitted directly or indirectly by the very writers who blame him 
for not setting up such a government! Besides, the safety of Eng- 
land required the settlement of her affairs on some enduring 
foundation. But the characteristic conservatism of the English 
m i n( ] — conspicuous even in times of revolution—was tenacious 
of the old system of laws. "Nolumus Leges Anglic mutari" was 
still an honored sentiment. The title of Protector was unknown to 
those laws; not so the title of King. Hence it was argued by 
Whitelocke and others that, the adoption of the latter title would 
cause the Instrument or Constitution on which the Protectorship 
was based " to ground itself in all the ancient foundations of the 
laws of England." Not only so; soon after the termination of the 
wars between the rival Houses of York and Lancaster, the Nation, 



* Milton's Prose Works II, 411-421 ; and Carlyle's Cromwell. 



136 

deeply impressed with the dangers of an unlegalized allegiance, 
had, by Act of Parliament, adopted the principle that " all persons 
who obey a king de facto, are to be held guiltless." But it was 
doubtful whether this principle would apply in the case of a ruler 
with the title of Protector. This consideration naturally had the 
more weight when it was considered that Oliver however energetic, 
wise and popular, could not live many years longer. 

Bishop Burnet tells us that " all the lawyers — chiefly Glyn, May- 
nard, Fountain and St. John — were vehemently for " the proposition 
to make him king; and that " some have thought it would have 
brought on a general settlement."* Clarendon too says that ''this 
proposition found a marvellous concurrence:" and that " very many 
who used not to agree in anything else, were of one mind in this." 
This shrewd Royalist who looked with dread on whatever tended to 
hinder the restoration of the Stuarts, more than intimates the 
opinion that Cromwell had no great danger to apprehend from ac- 
cepting the kingship. " It may be," says he, "there were more 
men scandalized at his usurping more than royal authority, than 
would have been at his assumption of the royal title too. And 
therefore they who at that time, exercised their thoughts with most 
sagacity looked upon that refusal of his " — of the crown — " as an 

IMMEDIATE ACT OF ALMIGHTY God TOWARDS THE KING'S RESTORA- 
TION : and many of the soberest men in the Nation, confessed after 
the king's return, that their dejected spirits were wonderfully raised 
and their hopes revived by that infatuation of his" in declining 
the proffered honor.t 

That in such circumstances Cromwell should have deliberated, 
(hat he should even have doubted, upon the question of acceptance, 
is certainly no very clear evidence of corrupt aspirations. The 
same facts which led ?o many of the most intelligent friends of civil 
liberty to request him, as things were, to accept the regal title as the 
best means of establishing a safe and good government, and which 
caused the Stuart faction to regard his refusal with such devout 
gladness, may reasonably be supposed to have had some influence 
upon his mind, without any bias from ambitious desire. He has 
never been accused of a fondness for personal display, for the pomp 
and parade and glitter usually attendant on royalty. He had always 
exhibited, as his defamers themselves admit, a plainness in his 
equipage and general style of living, as great as could at all consist 
with the stations which he was called to fill4 If> as touching things 

* Burnet's Hist, of His Own Times, p. 45. 

t Grand Rebellion VII 260. 

t After he became Protector his style was less plain but even then as Hum© 
remarks, though "some state was up-held " it was "with little expense and with- 
out any splendor." 

Entirely apart from the consideration of personal display there were obvious 
political reasons for "the state and equipage " with which he left London for his 
campaign in Ireland in 1649. His going with a coach and six, is however suffi- 



137 

of this nature, it could ever be truly said of any man, it was truly 
said of Cromwell, that there was "no nonsense about him." Nor 
had he ever manifested any eagerness to obtain high-sounding titles. 
On the contrary, he had most cheerfully yielded the titular preemi- 
nence to others during a long series of great services, when, by 
universal consent, his genius, energy and influence were unrivalled. 
Even the highest military title came almost at the close of a career 
in arms in which he had won the admiration of all Europe, and it 
came at last unsought and against his earnest solicitations. 

Such a man could not fail to command respect But no ruler was 
ever less solicitous in regard to his personal dignity. Deference, 
awe, waited upon him but out of respect to the man and not to his 
titles. He would often unbend and be as playful as a boy. Thus, 
whde consulting with Lord Broghil, Pierrepont — brother of the Earl 
of Kingston, an old Long-Parliament man — Whitelocke, Sir Charles 
Wolseley and Thurloe, about this very subject of the kingship as 
well as other great affairs, " he would sometimes be very cheerful 
with them ; and laying aside his greatness, he would be exceeding 
familiar ; and by way of diversion, would make verses, play at crambo 
with them and every one must try his fancy. He commonly called 
for tobacco, pipes and a candle, and would now and then take to- 
bacco himself. Then he would fall to his serious and great business 
and advise with them in those affairs ; and this he did often with 
them."* 

It requires, in short, no great stretch of credulity to believe that 
when he spoke of royalty as " a mere feather in a man's cap," he 
expressed his real sense of its unimportance. 

Nor is there reason to believe th?t his parental affection savored 
of an ambition to bequeath an inheritance of royalty or the splendors 
of princely rank. A most tender and devoted father, he certainly 
was. But there is no evidence that he ever sought to raise his 
children to the possession or to fire them with the hope of 
wordly greatness. There is abundant proof in letters intended not 
for the public eye, that his solicitude for their welfare took a very 
different direction. Writing to his daughter, married to the able, 
pious and patriotic Ireton, whose merit was fast raising him to dis- 
tinction and commanding influence, he said: "Dear heart, press on; 
let not husband, let not anything cool thy affections after Christ. I 
hope he will be an occasion to inflame them [*. e. Christian affec- 
tions]. That which is best worthy of love in thy husband, is that 

ciently explained by what Macaulay says of the roads and modes of travelling in 
England in that century. " A coach and six is in our time never seen, except as 
part of some pageant. The frequent mention therefore of such equipages in old 
books is likely to mislead us. We attribute to magnificence what was really the 
effect of a very disagreeable necessity. People in the time of Charles II [and 
of course in the time of Cromwell too] travelled with six horses because with a 
smaller number, there was great danger of sticking fast in the mire. Nor 

WERE EVEN SIX HORSES ALWAYS SUFFICIENT." — Hist, of England. 

* Whitelocke as quoted by Carlyle. 



138 

of the image of Christ he bears. Look on that and love it best 
and all the rest for that."* 

In the choice of a wife for his eldest surviving son, Richard, he 
had shown a like appreciation of Christian excellence. A lady of 
moderate portion and of middling rank, was preferred, on account 
of her superior piety, to many an heiress of more distinguished 
name and more ample fortune.? 

Here his rejection of the proposal of Charles Stuart to wed his 
daughter Frances, will occur to the minds of all who are familiar 
with his history. This descendent of so many princes, this son of 
him who had worn the crown of the British Empire and then per- 
ished as a felon amid the ruins of the monarchy, this heir of the 
name and principles and alleged wrongs of "the martyr-king," even 
when the sound of his proclamation denouncing the execution of his 
father as murder, parricide and treason, had not died away on the ear 
of Europe, is said to have been wdling, for the sake of regaining the 
lost throne, to become reconciled as a son- in law to the proclaimed 
murderer and traitor ! Lady Frances and her mother are reported 
to have looked favorably upon this proposal of Charles, made through 
Lord Broghil. Not so, the sagacious, high-minded Protector. 

* See letter XXIII (in Carlyle) dated Oct. 25th 1646 ; also the quotation from 
a letter to his daughter-in-law, given on p. 60. 

t Obvious as is this fact both from Cromwell's letters and from the circum- 
stances themselves, and uniform as is the testimony of enemies as well as of 
friends, to his freedom from sordidness, the attempt has been made to convict 
him of impropriety in relation to this marriage. It has been objected 1st that 
before the marriage took place a pecuniary arrangement or bargain was made in 
which the amount of property which Cromwell was to bestow upon Richard and 
the amount which Mr. Mayor, the lady's father, was to give her were stipulated in 
legal form ; 2dly that Cromwell betrayed a covetous spirit in refusing to accede 
to some of the terms which for a time were insisted on by Mr. M. These ob- 
jections are easily answered, so easily indeed, that the wonder is, they should ever 
have been made by any person who had ever read the whole of Cromwell's letters 
relating to the subject. I observe 1st that however strange such an "arrange- 
ment " between two fathers, may seem to us, it was in strict accordance with 

AN ESTABLISHED AND REPUTABLE CUSTOM AMONG ENGLISHMEN ill the time of 

Cromwell ; 2dly that Cromwell could not accede to Mr. Mayor's terms without 
submitting to what would have been considered derogatory to the standing of his 
family, nor without manifest injustice to his younger children Writing to Mr. 
Mayor he said "I have two young daughters to bestow if God give them life 
and opportunity. According to your offer I have nothing for them, nothing 
at all in hani>." The whole correspondence makes it evident that Mr. Mayor, 
knowing- Cromwell's indifference in money-matters, attempted to impose upon 
him. But generous as he was, he was not the man to submit to an imposition 
which would work gross injustice to others. 

Shakspeare makes one of his most chivalrous and generous characters say, 

" I do not care ; VU give thrice so much land 
To any well-deserving friend ; 
But in the way of bargain, mark ye me, 
I'll cavil on ike ninth part of a hair." 

Cromwell's firmness and frankness on this occasion, followed as they were by 
great liberality and kindness to Mr. Mayor and his family, evidently did not lower 
him at all in that gentleman's esteem. 



139 

i* If" exclaimed he — adverting to the nature and the motives of this 
proposed reconciliation — " Charles Stuart can forgive me all that 
I have done against him and his family, he does not deserve to wear 
the crown of England."* He justly thought that the man who could 
thus falsify all his professed principles and thus outrage his real and 
often published feelings for the sake even of a crown, was too 
mean, though the descendent of a long line of kings, to become his 
son-in-law. 

The sentiment which he had, on all occasions, sought to impress 
upon the minds of his sons and daughters, was the very same which 
he uttered so feelingly when his family stood weeping around him 
just before his death : " Love not this world. I say unto you, it 
is not good that you should love this world. — Children, live like 
Christians; I leave you the covenant to feed upon.'' Although the 
power to appoint his successor, was given him soon after his refusal 
of the kingship, he was, to the last, less desirous to make his child- 
ren heirs to temporal estates, lordships and thrones than to interest 
them in crowns and glories which should never fade. The paper in 
which he is supposed to have named the inheritor of his Protector- 
ship, could never be found ; and it is not certain, if indeed probable, 
that he appointed Richard. He seems to have really felt that the 
cares of his high office, were l< a burden too heavy for any creature ;" 
and to have been sincere in declaring, as he did, on the occasion of 
dissolving his last Parliament. : " I can say in the presence of God 
— in comparison with whom we are but like poor, creeping ants 
upon the earth — I would have been glad to have lived under my 
woodside, to have kept a flock of sheep rather than undertaken such 
a government as this." Why, then, did he not abdicate — do you 
ask ? In reply f will not insist on the obvious fact that for him 
there was no safe retreat earthward — that descent from the emi- 
nence to which the Providence of God and his overshadowing 
greatness had raised him, would have been swi't destruction to him 
and to those who had acted with him. Self-preservation, when con- 
sistent with the public good, is. indeed, no despicable consideration. 
Cut a higher reason for continuing to bear his burden was most 
clear and urgent. Behold England as she then was, great, pros- 

* If Cromwell used the language here attributed to him (see Encyc. Ameri- 
cana, Art. Cromwell) the term forgive is of course to be interpreted by the light 
of the subject and the connection i. e. in the political and not the evangelical 
sense. 

In Orrery's State Papers, however, as quoted by Count Grammont in his 
♦'Memoirs of the Court of Charles II" p. 430, heissaid to have answered, "No! 
the king would never forgive me the death of his father ; besides he is so dam- 
nably debauched, he cannot be trusted." 

Bishop Burnet gives the answer in nearly the same words ; " The king can 
never forgive his father's blood. " — And when it was replied that in bringing 
Charles I to the block, he had acted in conjunction with many others, while he 
would have the entire credit of restoring Charles Stuart, Cromwell concluded 
the conversation by saying " He is so damnably debauched he would undo us 
all." — Burnet's History of His Own Times. 



140 

perous, the admiration of the world. How changed from the 
England of Charles I ! how glorious above the England of Charles 
II ! Who — under the All-wise — has directed her counsels and 
wielded her energies till she stands thus in the brightness of an 
epoch such as hns not been nor shall soon be again — an Oasis beau- 
tiful and cheering to contemplate amid the political Sahara of the 
Seventeenth Century? And whose death is to be the forerunner of 
the returning Genius of Desolation, heralded by confusion and 
threatened anarchy, and followed by frightful executions, the ex- 
humation and gibbeting of the bodies of deceased patriots, the 
frantic depravation of morals and the degradation of England so 
low, that of all the nations which now hearken to her word, awe- 
struck, scarcely one shall be 

" So poor (as) to do her reverence ?" 

I can find it in my heart to forgive the man whose wisdom and 
courage had smitten down a malignant and ruinous system of op- 
pression and demoralization; who, standing amid the ruins of the 
fallen monarchy, had so rebuked the fierce elements of disorder 
that 

■* Confusion heard his voice and wild uproar stood ruled ;" 

who had given England the glories and blessings which clustered 
around the Protectorate; and who with an eye that glanced over Great 
Britain and over Christendom, saw with a patriot's concern and 
with a Christian's care, the dangers which no human hand but his 
could avert — I can forgive him though he did continue, for the sake 
cf his country and of Christianity, to sustain the tremendous burden 
a while longer. Even the sincere but narrow-minded and vindic- 
tive Fifth-Monarchy-Men, Levellers and Oligarchical Republicans, 
so suicidally bent on the impracticable, might well have looked less 
fiercely on the "One man" whose continuance in power was so 
necessary to keep their necks from the hangman's halter and their 
heads from unseemly exposure on Temple-Bar. The dreadful day 
was near enough, without the use of the assassin's knife or pistol, 
when the great arm which shielded them, would be powerless in the 
grave and when Oliver's warnings so long disregarded would be 
seen to have been friendly prophecies. 

Permit me here to remark that it is an error to assert, as some do, 
that during his last year, the Protectorate was already tottering 
to its fall in spite even of his efforts to uphold it- 

True it is that, in the course of that year, certain violent Royalists 
in correspondence with Charles Stuart attempted (not however for 
the first time) to excite an uprising of the Cavaliers, having planned 
an insurrection to take place in concert with a projected invasion 
from the continent ; true it is that at this very crisis, a clique 
of Republican Oligarchs, in Parliament, blindly resolute to rule or 
ruin, succeeded, as they had sometimes done before, in defeating 
measures important to the financial prosperity of the government 



141 

and in stirring up to new fury and clamor, the miscellany of Level- 
lers, Fifth-Monarchy-Men and other spirits of disorder and anarchy; 
and true it is that some anonymous ruffian wrote so truculently about 
assassinating him as to shew very clearly that there was, at least, 
one who desired to have him put out of the way. But what of all 
this? The very down-sitting and up-rising of the instigators and 
agents of violence were watched by eyes devoted to the Protector. 
The moment they were ready to act, they were arrested and held at 
his mercy. The plans of the Royalists were all revealed to him, 
they knew not by whom. " Thus " remarks Bishop Burnet " Crom- 
well had all the king's party in a net." How little terrified the 
Protector was, may be seen from his easy magnanimity in disposing 
of a high dignitary who had come over in disguise to consult with 
the Royalists in regard to the insurrection and invasion. It was 
early in the month of March, 1658, that he said very quietly to 
Lord Broghil : "An old friend of yours is in town, the Duke of 
Ormond, now lodged in Drury Lane, at the Papist Surgeon's there: 
You had better lell him to be gone" "Whereat" says Carlyle, 
" his Lordship stared ; found it a fact, however ; — hs Grace of Or- 
mond did go with exemplary speed and got again to Bruges and the 
Sacred Majesty with report that Cromwell had many enemies but 
that the rise cf the koyalists was moonshine." More than 
two months before the Protector was called away, the fires of in- 
surrection — or perhaps I ought rather to say, the hopes of insurrec- 
tion — had all been quenched ; and the High Court of Justice which 
tried the enkindlers thereof, had dissolved itself, its work of protect- 
ing the public peace by punishing its disturbers, being done* 

Meanwhile from the May >r and Common Council of London, from 
various parts of the Nation, responses and declarations had been 
made, indicating that the strength of England was with him ; and 
now the news of victories abroad and of the acquisition of Dunkirk, 
and the arrival of splendid, ducal envoys bearing the high congratu- 
lations of Cardinal Mazarin and Louis XTV, began to illumine him 
with a new blaze of glory in the eyes of all true Englishmen, caus- 
ing their hearts to beat higher and to feel kindlier towards the 
matchless ruler, saluted from across the Channel as " the most in- 
vincible of sovereigns." 

In fact Stuart-royalism had been so smitten to the earth that for 
months after the arm that dealt the blow, ceased to guard the 
Commonwealth, it did not raise its head or speak above the lowest 
whisper in England. Those poet-trimmers, Dryden, Waller, and 
Spratt, so heedful of the signs of change in the political heavens, 
descried nothing to deter them from panegyizing the departed hero- 
statesman or from paying court to his son who, as Clarendon admits, 
succeeded him as quietly as if he had been heir to a long establish- 



* A few of the more prominent and incorrigible only, were put to death, the 
majority being pardoned by the Protector. 



142 

ed hereditary throne. In the Parliament elected soon after Richard's 
accession, the Protectorisis not only outnumbered the Republi- 
can Oligarchs, the Royalists and the Neuters taken singly, but 
were fully equal to them all united. Meantime the leading 
courts of Europe had gone into mourning at the decease of the 
great Protector; and several months later, Cardinal Mazarin "sent 
his coaches and guards a day's journey to meet Lockhart the 
Commonwealth Embassador," but refused to see Charles Stuart at 
all, and contrived to tell the Duke of Ormond, without granting 
him the honor of a formal interview, that there was no hope for his 
king. Even the Spanish minister would give Charles no encourage- 
ment of aid to obtain the crown of England. 

Thus did the Protectorate stand, in the view of Europe, imposing 
and grand through the strength and majesty which Oliver's victori- 
ous efforts and mighty name had given it, even after his energy and 
genius had ceased to guard it; — and had Richard— greeted with 
loyal addresses from the army, the navy, the churches, the cities, 
the boroughs, from thousands who had been committed against his 
tather but were glad to make amends for their error by welcoming 
him — brought to the discharge of his high duties, a boldness, tact, 
and personal influence at all resembling the great Protector's, we 
should never have heard of the reign of Charles II, king of Eng- 
land. 

From this survey of the facts which demonstrate Cromwell's 
triumph over ail attempts to subvert his government, we return to 
contemplate him in those days when " the last enemy " was at hand 
" to undo his heavy burden." 

When he declined England's splendid regalia, he was near to the 
crown and throne which his eye of faith had first gazed upon with 
joy, almost forty years before. His sudden exchange of rural habits 
and peaceful pursuits, at the age of forty-three, for a career so 
strongly contrasted, had doubtless been sufficient to unloose the 
firmest hold on life. Labors, struggles, and trials of intellect and 
heart, enough to task the endurance of an ordinary commander and 
ruler for a whole life-time, had been thrown upon him and sustained 
by him, within the short space of sixteen years. No wonder that at 
the age of fifty-nine and under the glowing ardor of such intense, 
rapid, and almost unintermitted mental action, the springs of life 
were fast drying up. His last year whilst a year of public triumphs, 
was a year of great domestic griefs. One who knew him intimate- 
ly,* testifies that "he was naturally compassionate towards objects 
in distress even to an effeminate measure; though God had made him 
a heart wherein was left little room for any fear but what was due 
to Himself — of which there was a large proportion — yet did he 

* I quote from " A sketch of the Civil Wars to the Protectorate of Richard 
Cromwell, iu a letter from Maidstone, of Oliver's Household, to John Wiothrop, 
Esq., Governor of the Colony of Connecticut in New England ;" dated West- 
minster, March 24, 1659. 



143 

EXCEED IN TENDERNESS TOWARDS SUFFERERS." This Was true of 

him in respect to all sufferers. How then must his affectionate 
paternal heart have been pained at the distresses which befell his 
family circle in such rapid succession ! 

In February 1658, he wept with his youngest daughter Frances, 
so hopefully married, three months before to the excellent Robert 
Rich, grandson and heir of the Earl of Warwick. The youthful 
bride was so soon a widow; and he whose voice shook realms, was 
tenderly laboring, in accents of sweet peace and hope, to assuage 
the grief of her deeply stricken heart; — and not of hers only. He 
condoled with the venerable grandfather also, in a series of letters 
so full of timely consolation that the Earl said in reply: "I cannot 
enough confess my obligation, much less discharge it, for your 
seasonable and sympathizing letters; which, besides the value they 
derive from so worthy a hand, express such faithful affections and 
administer such Christian advices as render them beyond measure 
dear to me" 

It happens to be susceptible of the clearest proof that these letters 
were written just after the dissolution of his last Parliament, in those 
very days when, as certain writers would have us believe, he was in 
a mood of disappointed ambition and despairing rage bordering on 
madness ! How little do such writers know respecting the vast and 
heaven-lighted in'erior of a mind like his ! 

Time passes on; Royalist insurrections and invasions, have be- 
come a by-word ; the instigators of assassination have found that 
they are in greater danger than the Protector; the magnificent 
embassy of congratulation on victories abroad, has paid the courte- 
sies of France to the great Englishman, but still remains to attract 
ever and anon the gaze of the Londoners and mingle its splendor 
with the pomp of England's ovation ; and now a little past midsum- 
mer, an affliction is at hand such as he has not felt since the death 
of his eldest son, Oliver, who at the age of twenty, having become a 
cornet in the cavalry, fell in the cause of his country soon after, 
lamented with a grief which the father's own simple language best 
expresses. Speaking near the time of his own death, of the consola- 
tion he received from Phil. IV, 11-13, he said : " This scripture did 
once save my life, when my eldest son died ; which went as a dagger 
to my heart, indeed it did." On the 6th of August after a long and 
terrible series of " great sufferings " and "great exercises of spirit " 
died his favorite daughter, the universally beloved Lady Elizabeth 
Claypole. " For the last fourteen days," says Secretary Thurloe, 
" his Highness had remained by her bed-side at Hampton Court, giv- 
ing attention the while to no "public business whatever." Think 
of the great commander and potent ruler during those two weeks, 
lost in the father ! Mark how 

" that same eye whose bend doth awe the world," 

loses its lustre as he leans, pale from deep sympathy and long watch- 
ing, over *hat darling daughter and groans while she is racked with 



144 

the pains of those frequent convulsion-fits! See how that hand, 
which at Marston-Moor and Naseby brandished the lightnings of 
battle so terribly in the face of the vaunted chivalry of England, 
and which at Worcester wielded the sword that gleamed in the van 
of those resistless charges which made even the veteran Lesley turn 
pale, trembles while it wipes away, now the tears from his own eyes, 
and now the perspiration from her brow ! Yet see too how from 
time to time, as the Angel of the Covenant whispering peace, and 
pointing to the opening gate of Paradise, lights up her countenance 
with the radiance of triumphant hope, he smiles through his tears, 
rejoicing in her joy.* 

When at last the mourners retired from the death-scene to weep, 
one by one, apart, the warfare of the wearied Protector was well 
nigh ended. In a letter of the 17th of August, Thurloe, after 
mentioning " how sad a family she left behind her " says, this " sad- 
ness was truly very much increased by the sickness of his Highness 
who" at the time of her funeral " lay very ill of the gout and other 
distempers contracted by the long sickness of my Lady Elizabeth 
which made a great impression upon him ; and since that, he hath 
been very dangerously sick, the violence whereof lasted four or five 
days; but blessed be God he is now reasonably well recovered and 
this day he went abroad for an hour and finds himself much relresh- 
ed bv it, so that this recovery of his Highness, doth much allay the 
sorrow for my Lady Elizabeth's death." 

The alarm occasioned by bis illness had been very great ; many 
earnest prayers from hearts not unused to wait upon the Almighty 
Giver and Sustainer of Life, ascended on his behalf or rather on 
England's behalf; and now the joy for his apparent convalescence, 
was deep indped. It is barely possible that at this joyous juncture, 
that excellent divine, Dr. Thomas Goodwin with his eye directed to 
the facts then visible, may have exclaimed, "O Lord we pray not for 

* The story about this dying daughter's reproaching him on account of the 
punishment recently inflicted upon Dr. Hewit, a prominent instigator of the late 
insurrectionary movements, now asks (as Carlvle would say) for Christian 
burial. It certainly has no vitality of truth or probability or decency in it to 
entitle it to continue in the atmosphere which good men breathe. A letter 
written by Mrs. Claypole to the wife of her brother Henry, only lour days after the 
execution of Dr. Hewit, shows that she did not entertain the sentiments attribu- 
ted to her in that miserable fabrication. 

It is evident too that the oft-repeated tale respecting Cromwell's dread of as- 
sassination during the last few months of his life, is a gross perversion of the facts 
and a misrepresentation of his state of mind. During that year he doubtless had 
occasion, sometimes, to be guarded and wary in respect to his personal safety. 
This however is no very strong evidence either of great unpopularity or of peculiar 
dread of assassination,— as the history of some of the most esteemed and fearless 
rulers of Europe, whether in that century or in the present age, sufficiently shows. 
A very few miscreants-— with whom the millions of a Nation have no sympathy — 
may endanger the personal safety of a Henry IV, (of France), of a Napoleon, or 
even of a Victoria ; and render it highly proper for a very popular and dauntless 
ruler to be circumspect. That Oliver's heart was not then or at any time greatly 
moved with fear of any human foe, is what we happen to know not only from 
Maidstone who belonged to his household, but from many admitted facts. 



145 

his recovery — that thou hast granted already ; what we now beg is 
his speedy recovery."* The report, however, comes on such sus- 
picious authority and mingles itself with so many proved falsehoods 
relative to Cromwell and his chaplains during his last sickness, that 
it is entitled to little credit. A thorough examination of this subject, 
verifies the conclusion of Bennett and Bogue. " Cromwell's chap- 
lains " they observe, ** are said to have declared that God had 
promised them he should not die in that which proved his last sick- 
ness ; but this, and the story of his comforting himself on his death- 
bed with the assurance of heaven because he was once converted, are 
as void of probability as of proof."f 

Thurloe's letter was written on Tuesday. As late as the following 
Friday Oliver was seen riding into Hampton-Court Park at the head 
of his guards looking again " every inch a " — Protector ; but appear- 
ances were illusive. He was then riding thus for the last time. 
The next day he was alarmingly sick with a kind of tertian ague, 
which continued so violent that on the following Tuesday, by order 
of his physicians, he was removed from Hampton Court which he 
was never to see again, to the more favorable air of Whitehall. 

" His time was come " says Maidstone " and neither prayers nor 
tears could prevail with God to lengthen out his life and continue him 
longer to us. Prayers incessantly poured out on his behalf, both 
publicly and privately, as was observed, in a more than ordinary way. 
Besides manya secret sigh — secretand unheard by men yet like thecry 
of Moses more loud and strongly laying hold on God, than many 
spoken supplications. All which— the hearts of God's People being thus 
mightily stirred up — did seem to beget confidence in some and hopes 

* If Tillotson or any one else heard Goodwin say afterwards in reference to the 
Protector's unexpected death : " Lord thou hast deceived us and we were de- 
ceived," it should be observed that the words were not now used for the first time ; 
(See Jer. XX, 7.) nor could they have been employed by that learned man who 
was neither a fanatic nor a blasphemer in any other than the sense which they 
have in the idiom of the Hebrew ; accordiug to which God is often said to do that 
which he merely permits or suffers to be done ; or to bring events to pass which 
he merely does not prevent and which he overrules . E. G. compare II Sam. 
XXIV, 1 with I Chron. XXI, 1. Even in the New Testament we have : "Lead 
us not into temptation " for, Suffer us not to be led into temptation. See James 
1, 13. 

t History of Dissenters I, 74. 

Language like that ascribed to Goodwin and Sterry, was ascribed also to Dr. 
John Owen who pronounced the report a most impudent falsehood. " Mentitui 
impudentissime " said he " for I saw him not in his sickness nor in some long 
time before." Quoted in a note by the Am. Editor of Neal, II, 181. 

Cromwell's " assurance'of hope " near the end of life, was not founded merely 
nor mainly upon his belief that he was "once converted," but rather on his 
subsequent experience amid various trials, evincing to his mind the reality of his 
conversion and the genuineness of his faith in Christ. That he was guilty of no 
such inversion and perversion of the doctrine of the Saint's Perseverance in a life 
of obedience, as are ascribed to him in the slander adverted to, is manifest not 
only from his letters, speeches and conversations during the preceding thirty years 
but from his known declarations during his last sickness. 



146 

in all, yea some thoughts in himself" — how different from a boastful 
assurance! — "that God would restore him." 

His remarks, ejaculations and prayers during the remaining ten 
days, were reported more or less fully by several persons, and espe- 
cially by two most reliable witnesses, Maidstone, Steward of the 
Household, and Thurloe, Secretary of State. On what did his mind 
at this crisis, seem to dwell ? — what were his hopes and his fears ? — 
and about what did his " ruling passion strong in death " busy itself? 
In his wakeful hours, in his feverish dreams or even in his momen- 
tary flights of delirium, did his soul babble any heart-secrets about a 
crown long sought through hypocrisy, violence and blood — but at 
last eluding his grasp? — did he in the rage of disappointed ambition, 
mutter curses on any as if they had been bafflers of his aspiring 
aim ? — did " the burial places ot Memory " under the revivifying 
light of eternity drawing near, give up anything to trouble his con- 
science and force him to exclaim through chattering teeth and 
and colorless lips, 

" Avaunt ! and quit my sight ! Let the earth hide thee !" 
"Hence, horrible shadow ?" 

Or, with palsied moral sense and with martial fire burning in the depths 
of his heart, did he, like a common hero, fancy himself fighting his 
battles over again ? — and did the by-standers over-hear him uttering 
his old war-cry " The Lord of Hosts " or " The Sword of the 
Lord and Gideon," and animating his steed as if he were moving 
once more at the head o^ a hurricane charge of cavalry and pike- 
men ? No, no ; nothing ot all this. Hear him : " Lord thou knowest 
if I do desire to live, it is to shew forth Thy praise and declare Thy 
works." It was nearly four years since his mother, dying at the 
age of ninety-four, bestowed upon him that sublime and affecting 
benediction so worthy of her Puritan faith, ;< The Lord cause his 
face to shine upon you, and comfort you in all your adversities, and 
enable you to do great things for your Most High God and to be a 
relief unto his people. My dear Son, 1 leave my heart with thee. 
A good night." In the spirit of that benediction he now blessed his 
children commending them to the Angel of the Covenant. 

His mind, indeed, dwelt much upon the Covenants, which the Al- 
mighty has condescended to make with man ; the one conditioned on 
perfection of works and denouncing a fearful penalty for any short 
coming therein ; the other granting eternal life to all who receive 
Christ as their Mediator. His sense of the purity of God's Law and 
of the ill-desert incurred by breakiwg the Covenant of Works, was 
intensely vivid. He was heard to say with his characteristic em- 
phasis of a three-fold repetition : " It is a fearful thing to fall into the 
hands of the Living God." The Covenants " were two," he ejacula- 
ted ; "two, but put into one before the foundation of the world." 
And again " The^Covenant is but one. Faith in the Covenant is 
my only support. And if I believe not, He" — the Mediator of the 
Covenant — "abides faithful" " All the promises of God are in 



147 

Him; yes and in Him Amen to the glory of God by us — by us in 
Jesus Christ." " The Lord hath filled me with as much assurance 
of His pardon and His love as my soul can hold." " I think I am 
the poorest wretch that lives : but I love God ; or raiher, am beloved 
of Gocl." " I am a conqueror and more than a conqueror, through 
Christ that strengtheneth me !" 

On Thursday night, the 2d of September (1658), roared around 
the Palace of the dying Protector, that terrible storm which, sweep- 
ing across Europe even to the coasts of the Mediterranean, so beat 
upon London, that houses were unroofed, chimneys blown down and 
trees torn from their roots in the Park.* If, as his superstitious 
enemies imagined, the Divine wrath was thus intimated, it is evident 
that its terrors were not addressed to him. To him " the Lord was 
not in the wind" any more than he had been to good King Duncan, 
in the blasts of that " unruly night " when 

"chimneys were blown down ; and, as they say, 

Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death 
And prophesying with accents terrible 
Of dire combustion and confused events 
New hatched to the woftil time." 

Whilst the whole land, from Caithness to Cornwall, seemed to 
tremble and rock beneath the tempest, Oliver heard Jehovah speak- 
ing to him in the still small voice of peace ; and calmly he breathed 
forth the prayer : " Lord though lam a miserable wretched creature 
I am in covenant with thee through grace. And I may, I will come 
to thee for thy people. Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, 
a mean instrument to do them some good and thee service ; and many 
of them have set too high a value upon me, though others wish and 
would be glad of my death ; Lord however thou do dispose ot me, 
continue and go on to do good for them. Give them consistency of 
judgment, one heart and mutual love ; and go on to deliver them, and 
with the work of reformation ; and make the name of Christ glorious 
in the world. Teach those who look too much on thy instruments, 
to depend more upon thyself. Pardon such as desire to trample upon 
the dust of a poor worm, for they are thy people too. And pardon 
the folly of this short prayer : even for Jesus Christ's sake. And 
give us a good night if it be thy pleasure. Amen." 

* I have given the date of this storm in accordance with the generally received 
accounts. Vide Neal and Forster. It would seem however from a statement of 
Ludlow as quoted by Carlyle, that there was a violent storm of wind, three days 
earlier. It was the stormy season, being near the middle of September by our 
calendar, and there may have been boisterous winds on Monday and blasts still 
more terrible on Thursday night. 

t In determining the night on which this prayer was offered, compare Carlylo 
with Forster and especially with Thurloe as cited by the Am. Editor of Neal. II, 
181. 

In sentiment and spirit the prayer accords so entirely with|his sayings and suppli- 
cations during several days and nights before his death, that it is not unreasonable 
to supposo that, in substance, it may have been offered and overheard more than 
once. 



148 

"His heart " says Maidstone "was so carried out for God and His 
people — yea, indeed, for some who had added no little sorrow to him," 
among others the Anabaptist Republicans as they were styled " that 
at this time he seems to forget his own family and nearest relations." 

" That very night before the Lord took took him to his everlasting 
rest," Maidstone heard him with difficult utterance saying. "Truly 

God is good ; indeed he is ; he will not ." Then his speech failed 

him but as I apprehend, it was " He will not leave me." This say- 
ing "God is good" he frequently used all along, and would speak it 
with cheerfulness and fervor of spirit in the midst of his pains. 
Again he said " I would be willing to live to be further serviceable 
to God and his people : but my work is done. Yet God will be with 
his people." 

"He was very restless most part of the night, speaking often to 
himself. And there being something to drink offered him, he was 
desired to take the same and endeavor to sleep. Unto which he an- 
swered : " It is not my design to drink or sleep • but my design is to 
make what haste I can to be gone." Afterwards towards morning 
he used divers holy expressions, implying much inward consolation 
and peace ; among the rest he spoke some exceeding self-debasing 
words, annihilating and judging himself. And truly it was observed, 
that a public spirit to God's Cause did breathe in him — as in his life- 
time so now to his very last." 

When the morning dawned, he was insensible. It was the 3d of 
September, always kept as a Thanksgiving Day since the victories of 
Dunbar and Worcester. The eye that just eight years before, flash- 
ed with such terrible glow when, over St. Abb's Head and the 
German Ocean, the first gleam of the morning sun fell upon the 
resistless column of the charging Ironsides, was now glazing in 
sightless stupor. At four o'clock in the afternoon his mighty spirit 
had passed away. The whirlwind chariot had come and waited ; and 
)o, he was gone. The voice that just seven years before was sound- 
ing out so cheeringly yet so appallingly the word of onset at Worces- 
ter, was now hushed in breathless silence forever. Yet who can say 
that September 3d, 1658, was not also a day of victory to Oliver 
Cromwell ? 

" He is gone to heaven" said the sagacious Thurloe, "embalmed 
with the tears of his people and upon the wings of the prayers of 
the Saints. He lived desired and died lamented, everybody bemoan- 
ing themselves and saying, ' A great man is fallen in Israel.' 

In estimating the character of the extraordinary man whose life 
has passed in review, it is but just to consider the age in which 
he lived and the part which he had to act. Although the great prin- 
ciples of morality are immutable, yet the special duties of men and 
the qualifications which they need, vary with the times, the circum- 
stances, the relations in which they are called to act. Many 
Americans seem to suppose that all leaders of revolutions should be 
precisely like our venerated Washington and do exactly what he did. 



149 

But how different were his circumstances and his duties from the 
circumstances and duties of Cromwell ! Qualifications and excel- 
lences are, to no small extent, relative; and those who speak of 
model patriots and model revolutionists sometimes speak inconsider- 
ately. England in 1642 and in 1653 needed a Cromwell rather than 
a Washington ; and it is unjust to condemn the Englishman of the 
Seventeenth Century for not exhibiting the same qualities and adopt- 
ing the same measures as the American of the Eighteenth. Two great 
revolutions, two grand eras, two political reformers precisely alike 
were never admitted into the scheme of Divine Providence and can 
never appear in this world. Why should they 1 Along the ever- 
lasting ways of that Providence, are no mere repetitions. Affairs 
move onward without ever recurring in exactly the same combina- 
tions or reproducing just the same results. The English Revolution, 
pioneering the American, had peculiarities and exigences eminently 
its own. The work of Cromwell was preparatory to the work of 
Washington and tended to the same great end, but was exceedingly 
different in form and in degree of arduousness. 

His long sway over the British Empire and the blessings which 
came and departed with it, are certainly proof ai& a union of great 
and shining qualities. To say that he had a powerful army at his 
command, does not diminish the weight of this proof. That fact, in 
the circumstances, is itself one of the wonders of his history. He 
was the only man in the world who could have collected and so dis- 
ciplined and controlled that army. It is a very superficial view of 
this matter to class the Ironsides with such specimens of humanity 
as c imposed the legions of Caesar or the grand army of Napoleon. 
'•The worse the man, the better the soldier" was no maxim of 
Cromwell. Rigid as was his r discipline and obedient as were his 
soldiers on drill, on march or in battle they never lost their individu- 
ality or parted with their self-respect. Nowhere else in England 
was there more activity o( thought and freedom of opinion and of 
.speech upon all the great questions of Religion, Politics and Social 
Reform than in his camp. Bishop Burnet speaking of some regi- 
ments which he saw at Aberdeen, says, " There was an order and 
discipline and a face of gravity and piety among them that amazed 
all people. Most of them were Independents and Anabaptists ; they 
were all gifted men and preached as they were moved." They 
doubtless erred in some of their opinions — for there was a great 
diversity of views among them — but they were freemen and drew 
sword neither as mercenaries nor as man-worshippers. It was the 
soldiers of Napoleon who especially delighted to cry, " Vive L'Em- 
pereur ;" it was the soldiers of Cromwell, on the contrary, who were 
]east inclined to make him king. 

The age of Cromwell was an age bright with a host of great 
names and marked with an extraordinary uprising and advancement 
of the popular mind — an age presenting to a military and political 
leader a vast number of most difficult and appalling emergencies, 



150 

and a fearful succession of rugged and awful crises. Yet the 
mightiest intellects of that age were the most willing to acknowledge 
his matchless powers and not one of those emergencies or t crises 
came without finding him fully prepared to meet it. The attempt to 
explain his ascendency by a reference to the "fanaticism" or relig- 
ious zeal of the times, is absurd. Did this zeal impel people — the 
Covenanters, the Independents, the Baptists, the Quakers and other 
sects — all in the same direction? Far from it. The truth is that no 
person can fully appreciate the very greatest of all the difficulties 
which beset Cromwell's path, who is not thoroughly familiar with the 
ecclesiastical and theological disputes of the day and with their potent 
bearings upon the politics of the times. Never was a man's success 
more directly and legitimately the result of capacity, character and 
conducl than his. He overcame obstacles which would probably 
have been insuperable to any other man described on the page of 
history. Less grasp of intellect, less prompitude of decision and 
tenacity of purpose, less courage, energy and tact, less justice, mag- 
nanimity and sensibility of heart, less sublimity of motive and 
strcnuousness of endeavor, or less reputation and influence founded 
on Christian character, would have made a marked difference in the 
result. 

There was in his mind a remarkable variety and compass of power 
and susceptibility. This has led some writers to ascribe mystery and 
self-contradiction to his character. Qualities reallv belonging to the 
human mind and increasing its capacity for usefulness and enjoy- 
ment, are not, however, to be deemed incompatible with each other 
or destructive of mental harmony and soundness, merely because they 
are rarely found largely developed in the same individual. Their 
union is, on the contrary, essential to true mental greatness of the 
highest order and an evidence, wherever it exists, of the best develop- 
ment of the soul. That Cromwell should have been sometimes 
terribly stern and sometimes gentle as a dove, that he should have 
been now deeply moved in contemplation of things on which the 
seraphim gaze with trembling ecstasy and now have laughed aloud 
in view of things ludicrous, that he should have frowned with awful 
severity upon armed traitors and insurgent murderers and yet have 
wept in sympathy with the persecuted Waldenses, that he should on 
some occasions have appeared like majesty impersonated and on 
others have been as earless of his dignity as a child, may, perhaps, 
shock persons with narrow views of mental greatness or with tastes 
formed on some model of prim, official propriety or of studied, 
heartless sanctimony, but there is really no mystery in all this, save 
the mystery of a large, noble mind alive and active in all its faculties 
and exhibiting emotions and putting forth exercises appropriate to 
the objects and circumstances with which it was conversant. His 
vast variety of endowments so conspicuous in each particular, fully 
justifies the remark that " a larger soul hath seldom dwelt in 

A HOUSE OF CLAY THAN HIS WAS." 



151 

" The house of clay " in which he dwelt was very suitable for 
such an inhabitant. Carlyle's description of his person as it was in 
1653 is well authenticated and just. The Protector "stands some 
five feet ten or more ; a man of strong solid stature, and dignified, 
now partly military carriage: the expression of him, valor and de- 
vout intelligence — energy and delicacy on a basis of simplicity. 
Fifty-four years old, gone April last ; brown hair and moustache are 
getting gray. A figure ot sufficient impressiveness; — not lovely to the 
man-milliner species nor pretending to be so. Massive stature; big 
massive head of somewhat leonine aspect; wart above the right eye- 
brow; nose of considerable blunt-aquiline proportions; strict yet 
copious lips, full of all tremulous sensibilities, and also, if need 
were, of all fiercenesses and rigors; deep loving eyes, call them 
grave, call them stern, looking from under those craggy brows as if 
in lifelong sorrow, and yet not thinking it sorrow, thinking it only 
labor and endeavor: on the whole, a right noble lion-faro and hero- 
face ; and to me royal enough." 

The prominent evidences of Cromwell's patriotism have been 
adduced and need not be repeated. Against all the facts demon- 
strating his sincerity and magnanimity, shall it be sufficient merely 
to say that he became Protector? — that in a revolutionary period he 
obeyed the law of a momentous public necessity, and, for the sake 
of a higher good, sometimes disregarded legal forms? True, a 
good end cannot sanctify a means which, in itself, is morally wrong. 
But who will say that the setting aside of legal forms^'s in all circum- 
stances wrong? Were not the life and body of England more than 
her tattered raiment of regal and parliamentary habits? There are 
rases in which the circumstances, the end, the motive ought to be 
allowed great weight in estimating the character of means. It is, 
for example, absurd to put the technically illegal measures of Crom- 
well in the same category with the arbitrary acts of Charles J. The 
one sought to make his country free, and to found her liberties on 
virtue and intelligence quickened and irradiated by Religion; and, 
amid difficulties the most discouraging, actually gave her a 
better constitution than any nation had then ever known. The 
other labored to change the government into an unlimited monarchy 
and perpetrated illegal acts and inflicted cruel wrongs for the sake of 
breaking down the spirit of the Nation and of establishing a des- 
potism on popular ignorance and degradation. The one, by his acts 
as well as his words, proclaimed his purpose, while taking no thought 
for his personal dignity, to " make the name of an Englishman as 
great with foreign countries as ever that of Roman had been." 
The other, indifferent to England's glory abroad and her prosperity 
at home, betrayed, in all his conduct, a tyrant's littleness of soul and 
a despot's desire merely to exalt himself. 

Let the use which Cromwell made of his power, shed its light 
upon his motives in assuming it. In his policy whether domestic or 
foreign, could he have been more beneficently patriotic ? Even 



152 

in affairs less public, he exhibited the same noble, unselfish spirit. 
With the most tempting opportunities to enrich himself he did not 
increase his private wealth during his Protectorate. His income 
was scarcely adequate, notwithstanding the temperance of his habits 
and the simplicity of his style of living, to meet the draughts of his 
philanthropic munificence. It has been computed that he distributed 
for charitable uses not less than forty thousand pounds a year from 
his private purse. 

His self-control though not perfect, was most admirable. "His 
temper was exceeding fiery as i have known," says Maidstone, "but 
the flame of it (was) kept down for the tnost part or soon allayed 
with those moral endowments he had." In such men as Cromwell, 
Luther and Paul, not only possessed of vast intellectual might but 
moved by a grand impulsive power, there is much to control. The 
great river swollen by a thousand streams and marching with 
all its force of waters ocean-ward, requires high and strong em- 
bankments to keep it from breaking forth from its channel. 

One grand source of the greatness of Cromwell was the moral 
power which regulated and directed his energies. I refer to the 
enlightening and motive influence which Christianity had over his 
mind. As a religious and political reformer he took the Bible for 
his standard and measure of improvement Asa statesman he 
learned wisdom by studying the great principles of that righteous- 
ness which exulteth a nation. As a revolutionist, he kept his eye 
steadily upon the course of God's providence contemplating it from 
the lofty observatory of History and Prophecy. Hence his great 
advance before his age. Hence the loftiness of his aims and the gran- 
deur of his views. Hence his strength for perilous, ardous service 
in the " good old cause," so that " in the dark perils of war, in the 
high places of the field," and amid the tremendous labors and trials 
of the Protectorate, " hope shone in him like a pillar of fire when it 
had gone out in all the others. " His grandest resolves, his most 
wonderful exhibitions of intunive genius, and his greatest deeds 
followed his profoundest humiliations and went hand in hand with 
his mtensest emotions in waiting on the Eternal. This has been a 
stumbling-block to those who strangely imagine that to be habitually 
awed yet delighted in supplicatory communion with Infinite Intelli- 
gence, is incompatible with the highest practical wisdom. 

As an intended disparagement, it has sometimes been said that 
he was " a Christian of the Old Testament rather than of the 
New;" and that he resembled "David rather than the Apostle 
John." This criticism has been uttered by some who might well 
afford to sit at the feet of such a man, to learn the design and 
import of both the Testaments. Was not religion essentially and 
geuericaily the sameintheking-after-God's-ovvn-heart as in the belov- 
ed disciple? — in Joshua as in Peter?— in Hezckiah as in James? — 
We should repudiate the idea that any servant of God is to be imi- 
tated not only in the spirit of his whole life but also in all his specific 



153 

acta and special pursuits. In this sense there can no more be a 
model saint than a model patriot. The duties of Cromwell more 
nearly resembled those nf David than they did those of John ; and 
whatever the spirit of monachism, of sentimentalism or of formalism 
may assert to the contrary, the Spirit which first produced and then 
portrayed the characteristic virtues both of the king of Israel and 
of the lovely apostle teaches us that religion without changing its nature 
or assuming anything not its own,fis the power of a holy and befitting 
life, whether in the faithful preacher of the gospel or in the Christian 
revolutionist turning a kingdom upside down and rightside up ; 
whether in the pious mother training her little ones for usefulness 
and heaven, or in the God-fearing commander leading forth his 
armed hosts to defend the threatened rights and lives of his country- 
men ; whether in the righteous upholder of law and order in some 
obscure and narrow locality or in the mighty Protector hushing the 
raging elements of anarchy wherewith a realm is shaken and endan- 
gered. 

The remark that Cromwell though admirably fitted for his times 
and for his peculiar duties, would, with the same developments of 
character and the same specific aims, have been nnadapted to the 
present or some other age, is impertinent. For whose times and 
whose duties ought a man to be fitted if not for his own? That in 
which Cromwell has had few equals and no superior, was the power 
of adaptation. Many are wont to view him as a mere warrior. Yet 
forty-three years of his life had passed away before he performed his 
first service in war : and he spent fewer days in such service than 
our serene and peaceful Washington. 

Some have asked, " What did England gain by the Puritan 
Revolt 1" 

She gained the wide diffusion and triumph of an earnest, scriptu- 
ral and genial Protestantism ; and the most luminous proof that her 
true grandeur depends on a spirit among her people, such as only the 
Christianity of the Bible produces. . 

She gained deliverance from the ecclesiastical and political des- 
potism which the Stuarts sought to fasten upon her. 

She gained a view, such as she could never forget, of a better 
representative system and a better constitution than she or any other 
nation had ever known before; and the foundation of her naval 
supremacy and of her commercial greatness. 

She gained a profounder conviction of the dignity and rights of 
Man, opart from all adventitious distinctions; and a far clearer con- 
ception of the true end of civil government. 

She gained a salutary sense of the power and majesty of the 
People and of the practicability of holding rulers to a just account- 
ability. 

She gained an accession to her literature and to her historic 
examples, fraught with the motive and directive power of ceaseless 
reform and perpetual progress. 



154 

The Revolt was productive of immense good, and its failure was 
merely formal and temporary. It greatly facilitated subsequent 
revolutions and improvements. It created a moral atmosphere in 
which the trial by jury and other safeguards of liberty/became living, 
effectual realities; and in which a thousand abuses and disabilities 
died away and soon disappeared. The Habeas Corpus, a century 
earlier, would have fared like an orange-tree in Greenland. " Quid 
vance, sine moribus, leges prqficiunt?" The darkness of the Res- 
toration was but a cloud passing over the march of Revolution. The 
Puritan Age looks all the brighter for its proximity to those suc- 
ceeding years of false and stupid conservatism, when bigots and 
sensualists and men of no God, tried to roll back the brightening 
day from the effulgence of a glorious morning, to the thick night 
from which it had emerged, and hooting at the risen sun, 
sought to cover its rebuking face with the winding-sheet of the 
Past. During those very years when the fiercest contempt was 
poured upon the Revolution, and the head of the great Protector 
was spitefully exposed to the gaze of the people whom he had labored 
to elevate, thousands could not help remembering his sublime 
endeavor to establish liberty on the basis of popular improvement ; 
his large-hearted tolerance ; his high-souled patriotism, which 
only asked respecting a man to fill an office — Is he honest and capa- 
ble 1 — and his noble and far-sighted domestic and foreign policy by 
which England had risen to the pinnacle of greatness. 

Doubtless some evils attended that Revolt and some errors were 
committed by its leaders. To err is human ; and to " tear and rend 
the body which it leaves" is characteristic of" the devil of tyranny," 
whensoever and by whomsoever cast out. Unquestionably, the 
mistakes even of patriots should be noted and shunned ; and care 
should be taken not needlessly to increase the convulsions attendant 
on such an exorcism. But it is time that all Americans and 
Englishmen had learned, if not to "-pardon something to the spirit 
of liberty," at least to look with candor on the actions and motives 
of men who have struggled under great disadvantages, to be free; 
and to hold despotism itself responsible for the popular ignorance and 
excesses and shortcomings which have resulted from its darkening 
and maddening influence. The attempt to throw off the burden of 
oppression ought not indeed to be made rashly. But to assert that 
a nation ought never to undertake a revolution until prepared to pass 
through all its excitements and perils, without any risk of failure or 
mistake, is as wise as to tell men not to go into the water until they 
have learned to swim, or to expect that the eaglet shall not go forth 
from the nest which has been " stirred up," until he is inured to sky- 
hunting and has become a veteran ''lightning-glint," " cloud-cleaver" 
and " sun-starer." When Providence stirreth up the resting place 
of a nation with the talons of tyranny, and spreadeth the Divine 
wings for their support and protection, let them arise though they 
be not able at first to cleave every cloud or to soar, all at once 



155 

without blinking or faltering, into the pure ether and the dazzling 
light of midheaven. 

The very things which constituted the peculiar excellence of 
Cromwell as a man and a political reformer, have tended to prevent 
his character from being understood. I refer to the loftiness of his 
motives, the vast compass and versatility of his genius, and the oreat 
number of respects in which he was practically in advance of hi3 
age. Yet he cheerfully encountered misconstruction andfobloquy, 
confiding in the Controller of Events, to guard his reputation. 
What moral sublimity is displayed in that letter to Col. Michael 
Jones, (1647) in which he said, " Though, it may be, for the pre- 
sent, a cloud may lie over our actions to those who are not acquainted 
with the grounds of them ; yet we doubt not but God will clear our 
integrity and innocency from any other ends we aim at but His 
glory and the public good." Words of trust, how prophetic! Proofs 
of his " integrity and innocency," though in a great measure long 
concealed, have begun to shed their radiance upon his actions ; and 
the " cloud " which had rested upon them for two centuries, is now 
almost dispersed. The day is fast coming when the whole world 
will acknowledge that he was the greatest, most magnanimous and 
illustrious of all the rulers whohave ever wielded the sceptre of the 
British Empire. 

When the millions of this Republic, shall have learned to trace 
aright the lineage of Civil Liberty ; when the epitaph of Em- 
met shall have been written in a day of Irish Emancipation 
thorough and glorious beyond even his highest anticipations ; when 
Scotland shall have become illumined throughout by the light of her 
Free Church and her Free Schools and shall be prouder of the men 
who have made her name great and venerable than of the princes 
that would have demoralized and degraded her; and when England 
shall have cast off the burden of institutions and usages which she 
has outgrown and ought to despise, and it shall be her boast, not 
that the sun never sets on her dominions, but that the light of her 
free principles circles the whole earth, and that the voices of her 
Christian missionaries, and philanthropists, and eloquent writers 
pleading for Human Rights, are sounding in the four quarters of the 
globe, as resurrection trumpets to tribes and nations spiritually 
dead, then will mankind begin to render a due tribute to the 
memory of Oliver Cromwell. 

Note. Several corrigenda have been detected in the foregoing sheets ; espe- 
cially the following : 

Page 7, 4th line from the top, for "Charles Fox," read "Charles James Fox." 
for "to the throne," read " of the. throne." 
for •' unwakcned," read "awakened." 
for ** the pass," read " they pass." 
for " an of enlarged," read "of an enlarged." 
for •• Gwinn," read " Gioi/nn. ,> 
105, 13th " ■ note for •' Statesmen," read " Statesman " 



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